La Llorona
The story of La Llorona, the weeping woman, is popular in hispanic cultures and in the American southwest. There are several variations of it, but the basic story is that this woman has drowned her children for one misguided reason or another, or that they have wound up drowned by some other means. Since that time her ghost can be seen at whatever nearby river, where she has been condemned to spend the remainder of time searching for her drowned children. The appearance of La Llorona to some unfortunate traveler always means that the observer will die within a few days.
It was my interest in southwestern culture and ghosts that attracted me to this subject. The challenge that I enjoyed in this piece was the translucence of the figure.