Gallery Paper

Gallery: Joan Arrizabalaga
            Arrizabalaga currently holds many pieces in the University of Nevada, Reno’s gallery. While she works in many mediums, some of the most astonishing and unique pieces that caught my eye in this gallery are the stonework sculptures she created. Of these stoneware creations, I chose Shiva, Goddess of Luck to analyze and understand in this paper.
            This piece hangs on the wall as a shiny stone sculpture. Its unique shape and content immediately caught my eye.  The central part of the sculpture is comprised of a slot machine shape. The shape shows where you can insert the money at the top, the three slots that are randomly rolled, and where the money can come out.  While most of it is covered in a pearly white, it has bright yellow bars of color, as well as bright red cherries, which are a common symbol of gambling, painted on the bottom and in the middle.
In the slots is a figure that is presumably the Hindu deity Shiva.  Upon conducting research, it is laid out that Shiva takes many forms. Shiva is both male and female, as well as a good and evil. Shiva’s traditional role is to destroy the world to recreate it. In fact, it is believed that Shiva works now by weeding out the imperfections to create a more perfect world even as we live through it (Shiva).  This idea has an interesting tie to luck. Like the scientific idea of evolution, what is choice for Shiva is interpreted as luck for humans.
Around the central area are six arms holding items such as a coin and cherries. The full effect of this work ties in the theme of Arrizabalaga’s artist statement. Her statement focuses on chance and gambling in both games and life and how it develops human ideas of worship, superstition and luck (Arrizabalaga).

QUESTIONS:
1.     How has your time in Nevada, the state most well known for its legal gambling, effected your work?
2.     How do your ideas of faith, religion, and superstition tie into your interest in chance and gambling?


Works Cited
“Shiva.” BBC, BBC, 24 Aug. 2009, www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/deities/shiva.shtml.

Arrizabalaga, Joan. “Artist Statment.” Joan Arrizabalaga, joanarrizabalaga.com/statement.html. 

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