Gifts of Art presents Heroines: Bronze Sculpture by Laura Testé

Panic is a great motivator. When I saw fifty coming, I left my day job and set up a studio, a five year plan, and a website for Laura Testé Studios LLC.

I love Mondays. Don’t get me wrong, weekends with my family are the best, BUT I come back to my studio with the gusto of a woman on a mission. And that mission is to blow a spark into a blaze.

Sculpting fires up both left and right sides of my brain. Art and engineering are the co-captains of taking a clay model to a finished casting. I love the contest between shaping a detail just right and making sure that it is structurally sound.

My pieces are over and over again inspired from the back view. Of course, the front becomes the front. This makes my sculptures an emotional event as one amasses views from all sides.

As I work through a figure, I think about her narrative. How to express her self-reliance, her trust in herself, her independence. In contrast, my paired figures burn with fidelity, with unconditional friendship, with shared zeal. One version of the sculpture’s story always transmogrifies into a poem.

Hope my art ignites your vim & vigor.

– Laura Testé