"Tara"
Rokia Traore has an exquisite face. The media calls her an "African Superstar," but to me she has the face of a goddess. When I saw her performance I knew I had to use something of her in my next sculpture. Her face was the initial inspiration for "Tara."
An on-going fascination for me is ancient goddesses. Tara may be the most ancient figure I have done, although no historian could possibly be sure about how old she was -- actually I should say "is" because she is still actively worshipped by the Tantric Buddhists in Tibet as well as being a major figure in the historical hierarchy of Buddhism in India, China and Tibet. In India she is called "The Most Revered" of the pre-Vedic goddesses. Being "Mother Earth" she was the "first, oldest and greatest" of the deities.
She was worshipped in a wide range of places. People who spoke Latin called her "Terra Mater," in Hebrew she was "Terah" the Gauls called her "Taranis," and the Etruscans revered her as "Turan." One of the most ancient festivals celebrated in Athens was in her honor (they called her "Taramata," or "Mother Tara"). The festival was called "The Rioting" because of all the wild orgastic customs. Her name can be heard in Wales and Ireland presently -- the Welsh word is "Taran" and in Ireland she is "Torann" which means "thunder." In Ireland she is associated with the "sacred grove," probably because large phallic shaped stones were erected in her honor and later came to mark territories and sites where kings were inaugurated. Her name even turns up in the movie "Gone With the Wind" when the O'Hara family names their plantation "Tara" -- not probably directly in her honor, but with some memory of land being sacred while owned for generations.
An interesting aspect of Tara were her incarnations. Like most really old deities, she is never just good or bad. She exists in some netherworld until a mood strikes and she takes human form either to enlighten or totally ruin the poor human beings in her presence. With this goddess, her moods seem to have a color code -- possibly to warn the mere mortal ahead of time to genuflect or run. In a yellow, blue or red light she is threatening. In white or green light she is more than gentle, and if you see a vision of her in green she will help you through any terrible night. There is a gentleness to Tara even when she is terrible -- yes, she is a furious slayer, but only of evil beings. In the Indian legend she was born of her father's tears as he gazed with pity on the suffering world. It was written that she was originally a stellar goddess who granted safe passage to sailors across the seas. Later she was seen in a broader sense -- she is the protector of all mortals as they crossed the ocean of existence. In that incarnation she is the most gracious and lovely of all the ancient deities.
Each culture had a different way of sculpting her. My favorites are the Indian renditions where she appears as a lithe young woman with multiple arms - each arm showing an aspect of divinity. Along with the elegant hand gestures that show her as beyond the physical and mortal, she also holds a flower establishing her as an earth goddess endowed with the power of futility. The blue silken fabric she holds symbolizes the sea and the power of protection for seafarers and lost souls. I am at a loss to actually explain the black pearls except to say that one night when I was designing her I had a dream that her hair would turn into pearls as it flowed down her body. I also imagined the pearls to be small round universes or bits of worlds from the night sky. The black pearl in her headdress represents her "third eye" -- not on the forehead as is traditional in Indian depictions, but above her physical form as if she had an eye in the heavens.
I don't know what else to say about her, except that I have spent more hours making her than any other figure. I have noticed a growing trend -- I work just as hard as ever but produce fewer and fewer sculptures. Possibly middle age has hit and production is just slowing down. Than again, being older isn't all negative -- what a young person sees as a simple facade has many layers of subtle meanings for the older observer. That kind of perception is very useful in doing anyone's portrait, but is is especially true in doing a goddess.
Lisa Lichtenfels