My 49-year art career has been a continuous quest of the nature of woman.

It has led me from the contemporary woman as mother, wife, nurturer, to vamp, seductress, and queen. Now the journey harkens to the pre-biblical period, to ancient civilizations of women-centered societies. My focus is the Near East with Minonian, Cretin, and Cycladic imagery. Their ascendancy was from 12,000 to 500 BCE.

The goddess represents the all-encompassing power of woman, the manifestation of humanity as part of a whole, part of the cosmos and part of nature; an image that men and women can embrace equally.

Among all the goddesses, Asherah is my inspiration, for it is she who was carved from living trees as well as the image of the Tree of Life. This goddess is the embodiment of my passion for wood and all that is woman.

I want to resurrect the Goddess Asherah and the goddess within all of us through my art. The goddess is a symbol of empowerment for women that men will not resent or fear for it is a metaphor for earth as a living organism, an archetype for a balanced feminine consciousness that encompasses men and women as equals. Maybe this is a search for the strength of women in all of us.

- 1995 David L. Hostetler