Art By
Shahna LAx
The following pieces by Shahna Lax are on display and for sale in my studio currently.
Shahna has been producing copperworks at Studio Moresca in Crestone, Colorado since 2002.
Her work is motivated by an internal imperative that arises and guides each process. Each large illumination typically takes about three months to complete.
Awaken
Life awakens with a raindrop.
Acid etched copper and fretwork; shellac, silver pen & oxides. Translucent acrylic backing to fretwork. Mounted on ash rubbed with metallic wax.
20″x25″
$6000
Emergence
The phoenix is an image common to the universal unconscious. It appeared to me, with all its specific detail, while exploring a segment of my emotional life that became frozen as a young child. The physical symptoms that ignited this exploration expressed themselves in considerable discomfort from the back of my neck down my right arm, all along the pericardium meridian, and ending in a frozen index finger. All of these symptoms dissipated by the completion of this illumination. It seems that our bodies possess a singular language that would birth us into integrity.
It is an intense time and a ripe time to reignite into a more authentic self.
Acid etched, engraved and flamed copper with openwork; oxides, translucent red acrylic and mahogany.
17.5” x 17.5”
$6000
Rooted Imperative
The Green Man, guardian of the Life Tree awakes, droning runes of enchantment for the Earth’s restoration.
Carved into the trunk above the lute rose throat opening is the Environmental Bind Rune, invoking the opening of a door to a new way of understanding; identifying with ALL species and using every resource, including sacrifice, to stop the Earth’s destruction. The final rune is concerned with teaching the children never to forget how close we have come to planetary annihilation.
Acid etched copper, fretwork, repousse, amber water glass, oxides & epoxy. Framed in Oregon Madrone.
23.5″ x 23″
$15,000
Journey Through the Space Between Time
My friend Sylvia Hazlerig wrote an exquisite song cycle that included the poem by Rabindranath Tagore entitled “None lives forever.” I was part of a Belle Canto circle that was working on the Tagore section. That one line captured me. It just resonated in my whole being . An imperative arose around that verse that began with the form of a vesica pisces – the intersection of two circles. I found a maze in that form and another maze called a Baltic Wheel that felt very related, offering a way into the vesica maze through its center (I can’t see any other direct way in).
There are two figures, one whose life is draining away, and another life, somewhat muted, not yet fully born. I feel that center point, the vesica, as the full stop point where there is a merging into the Source before life emerges (or re-emerges), having been saturated by perfection and woven into music.
There were some surprising aspects to this illumination, including a vivid dream which I describe in my blog: Journey Through the Space between Time .
Acid etched copper with inks, engraving and fretwork backed in pellon saturated with amber shellac. Mounted on mahogany.
18.75” x 27.75”
$5000
Influence
Influence reflects the subtle response of the waters of life to the influence of cosmic forces, of which women and many gardeners are acutely aware. The six-sided flower-like form represents the hexagonal water crystal.
The labyrinth here is an elongated form of the one found in Poitiers, France, in which I see a tree, and others have seen two hands and a path into the uterus and forming of life. I have been given to understand that the form of a labyrinth is determined by the water flowing beneath it. It is intriguing to see the dancer and lily illuminated by the cosmic influence are on the dark side of the crescent moon. I also realized, after the form took place, that the two dancers resemble dervishes performing the sema turning and that lilies are a six-petaled flower.
Acid-etched and engraved copper with fretwork, repousse, treated with fire, oxides and shellac. Backed with a textured acrylic translucent panel. Mounted on mahogany.
22.25″x28″
$9400
Venus Infusion
21.5″ x 21.5″
SOLD
$6600