Asena

She who found the wounded and made them a people.

In Turkic mythology, Asena is the grey she-wolf who discovered a wounded boy left for dead, nursed him back to life, bore his children, and from that union came an entire people. She is not a goddess of war or of the hunt. She is the origin — the feral, protective force that refuses to let what is worth saving be lost. She belongs to the same archetypal current that Clarissa Pinkola Estés traces in Women Who Run With the Wolves — the Wild Woman in her most protective face: fierce not from aggression but from the absolute refusal to yield what is hers.

A statement necklace in enameled composite wood and Picasso jasper — large fang-shaped pendants in graduated sizes, tooth and claw in grey-green wolf hide and forest floor tones, separated by stacks of Picasso jasper heishi discs, finished with silver findings throughout. Raw, primitive, elemental. Adjustable length.

The Materials

Enameled composite wood pendants — large, fang-shaped forms in silver-grey with a surface that reads as both ancient and alive — striated, matte in some lights and faintly luminous in others. They suspend across the front of the piece in graduated sizes, the largest at center.

Picasso jasper heishi discs — flat disc beads stacked between each pendant in olive, terracotta, and slate. Picasso jasper is a stone of grounding and transformation — its surface marked by the same forces that shape the earth over time. The stacking creates a dense, layered interval between the pendant forms.

Silver findings — small rounds punctuating the transitions throughout the piece. They introduce the only light and reflectivity in an otherwise matte and muted composition — a flash of silver in the forest floor.