Liz Wolf was born in Duluth, Minnesota and spent her youth in the Twin Cities. Art, beauty and the spirit world intertwined with her everyday life. From an early age, she knew she wanted to be an artist. Her mother was a creative soul who filled her home with art from all over the world, a source of inspiration for her to this day. 

She earned her MFA in sculpture in 1974 from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. After graduating, she lived in Chicago where she visited the Field Museum of Natural History among other art venues. The Field Museum holds an extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts as well as a collection of Native American art from the Northwest Coast of the United States.

Liz moved to Santa Fe in 1997 where she still resides. “I am a sculptor creating figurative and animal forms, even combining the two.” Her sculptures also depict horses, dogs and crows reminiscent of the minimalist, elegant stone works of the Inuit, a Northwest Coast Native American tribe. Traces of southwestern Native American culture also weave through her artwork. 

Liz relishes attaching stories to pieces. She creates worlds for her sculptures to live in. Ideas spring from a wide variety of sources. Her true inspiration originates from a deeper place in her soul that embraces many indigenous cultures. In some cases her female figures evoke an Asian sensibility – they pose seated in a Buddha-like position and seem captured in moments of rapt reflection or meditation. 

Her goal for each sculpture is to give each piece its own voice. Her second goal is to emphasize artistic form, directing the viewer’s eye to move continuously around its many shapes and shadows. Whether her sculptures are figures or animals, or a combination of the two, Wolf’s ultimate desire is for each one to reflect a “spirit within.” She refers to the Latin word anima, meaning breath or soul, and notes that since ancient times, one of man’s beliefs has been that within every object, a spirit or soul exists. “I believe my artwork has breath, soul and a story to tell.”