Gesso Cocteau Bronze Sculptures & Fine Art

Buy Stranded Hearts

STRANDED HEARTS

An Anthology of Love Poetry

For those who have loved deeply, longed silently, and carried beauty through heartbreak.

Order a signed copy directly from Gesso Cocteau.

"The poet Gesso Cocteau reveals secrets, uncovers darkness, skims surfaces and sees the world as if it were in the first dawn of creation."

Stranded Hearts is a collection of poems that lives at the edge of things - where the familiar becomes strange, where the enchanted becomes home. These are poems that know the difference between longing and desire, between solitude and loneliness, between what we say and what we mean.

These poems move through love, storm, communion, seduction, fate, pain, and the private afterlife of desire. They are for readers drawn to poetry that keeps beauty alive after the heart has been changed by love.

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THE ENCHANTED SHOE

The Enchanted Shoe is a limited cast bronze
sculpture by Gesso Cocteau, created as a tribute to the quiet magic that
shoes have carried through myth, memory, and desire. More than an object of
beauty, it is a small bronze spell, a symbol of transformation, elegance, and
the mysterious journeys that begin the moment we dare to step into another
life. Like something discovered in an ancient library or left behind by a woman
touched by fate, the shoe holds the romance of fairy tales, the strength of
bronze, and the haunting beauty of a dream made permanent. To own The
Enchanted Shoe is to own a piece of magic, a sculpture that whispers of
love, destiny, and the unforgettable power of becoming.

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Life size bronze sculpture collection by Gesso Cocteau

Life Size Sculpture

Tabletop bronze sculpture collection by Gesso Cocteau

Table Top Sculpture

Mid size bronze sculpture collection by Gesso Cocteau

Mid Size Sculpture

I began making bronze sculpture and writing poetry as a way to reflect my own life's journey. There is always a correlation between my individual sculptures and my poetry.

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you, I am here to live out loud."

TEMPERANCE

I am an artist drawn to the sacred tension between passion and restraint. I do not see
Temperance as the denial of longing, but as the vessel strong enough to hold it. In my world, desire is not something to be conquered or silenced. It is a dark river, a flame, a winged thing moving through the body toward love. In the piece “Temperance” I wanted to create an angel who understands that every force has its
counterforce. Passion needs tenderness. Desire needs devotion. Darkness needs
compassion. Love, when it is true, does not erase the hunger of the soul; it
gives that hunger a place to kneel, a place to breathe, a place to become
beautiful. Temperance is not the angel who turns away from fire. Temperance is the angel who stands inside the fire and teaches it grace. She holds the balance between wanting and surrender, between the ache of the body and the mercy of the heart.

In the gothic world of Stranded Hearts, she becomes the guardian of dark desire, reminding us that even the most passionate love must be held with reverence, or it will consume he very heart it longs to save.

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WITH ONE BREATH

The hands in clay, from fire to bronze casting two souls 'With One Breath.

I am an artist driven by passion. I only sculpt to manifest ideas and emotions that have to do with a devotion to ecstasy and love. One of my favorite pastimes is to look at people or photos of people who are experiencing a human and soulful connection with another person. The sensuous world provides the artist with a vocabulary forged by the most common human experience … love.

In the piece “With One Breath" I wanted to create a balance of need, want, desire and rest. When we love another person with trust, there is a place where the two of you can go to let go of the world and be in your own private domain. This landscape of the love created between two people woven with trust and faith becomes the fortress to keep that love nourished. When you find yourself in this protected and alluring harbor it is almost as though you only have one heart, one breath.

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With One Breath bronze sculpture by Gesso Cocteau

MOONDANCE

Forged from fire a visual poem ‘Moondance’.

Moondance represents love’s contrasting forces. A paradoxical experience of love’s gravity and levity. When I started to sketch this sculpture, my idea was to manifest the dance of affection and attachment through figures intertwined in a movement that choreographs the sublimity of shared human experience.

My hope is that Moondance can be a dialogue with the viewer of the dynamics of love, its capacity to anchor us to the most profound aspects of our being while simultaneously liberating us from earthly constraints. I wanted Moondance to embody the transparency and lightness of a genuine connection, illustrating the rise and fall of human emotions. This sculpture is my way of finding and trying to understand the intricate and transformative interactions of human connection – a nuanced, yet deeply passionate exploration into the dance of love.

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Moondance tabletop bronze sculpture by Gesso Cocteau

THE JOURNEY

Immortal love is 'The Journey' never ending.

Anais Nin wrote in her diary, “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, and other souls.” With my piece, ‘The Journey’ I realized that whenever we reach out to another person in an intimate way we are beginning a journey. It is an invitation to share our love our passion and our hope. We may even get lost with this person on our journey, but sometimes we find new paths of passion that would not have been discovered without getting lost. I have learned in loving that at times you just stand still with that person and that becomes the journey. To linger is to suggest that it is not the destination or some perfect place you are trying to arrive with your love, but the moment of realization that you are with that person you desire to spend time with. In this way your stillness becomes the direction of your affection.

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The Journey mid size bronze sculpture by Gesso Cocteau

Living Artifacts from the World of Stranded Hearts

Books, Temperance and The Enchanted Shoe

June 18, 2026

Not Every Stranger is Unknown

Love leaves its mark upon the soul. Long after the moment has passed, the imprint remains. 'We are forever Stranded Hearts' Not every stranger is unknown.

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June 3, 2026

The Shadows Are Birds

The Shadows Are Birds The fates opened our hearts and stained us with fire; when finally they pulled us apart, the ashes of poetry remained. I have often wondered what becomes of love when it leaves us. Not the person. Not the story. But the feeling itself. Where does it go? I think all love leaves something behind. Not always joy. Not always grief. Sometimes only the strange golden residue of having been changed by another human being. A subtle rearrangement of the soul. A room within us that did not exist before. This is why I wrote Stranded Hearts. Because some loves become memories. Some become scars. And some become poetry. The shadows are birds, and the birds are souls. I have always believed that poetry changes us in ways we rarely notice at first. A poem enters through language but leaves behind something larger than words. For a brief moment, something within us shifts. A door opens. A memory awakens. A truth we could not name suddenly recognizes itself. Years later we may forget the poem entirely. We may lose the title, the author, even the lines that once moved us. Yet the transformation remains. The poem has become part of us. Beneath the surface, beyond memory, it continues its quiet work. Is this why art matters? Not because we remember it. But because it changes us. I have seen them before. In dreams. Beyond ruined gates where ivy swallowed stone. Perhaps memory is stranger than we imagine. Sometimes, just before sleep, it feels as though another world opens. A city of towers at dusk. Ancient books resting beneath dust and candlelight. The scent of rain moving through forests older than language. A blood-red rose pressed between forgotten pages. And somewhere within that landscape gather all the loves we once carried. Not lost. Only transformed. In Stranded Hearts, love is not polite, orderly, or obedient. It is fire. It is hunger. It is the raven watching from the edge of the garden. It is the rose opening in darkness. It is every beautiful thing that risks breaking our hearts simply because it exists. We are not here to preserve ourselves. We are here to burn. To love. To create. And maybe that is what all art asks of us. To survive the burning. To gather what remains. To transform sorrow into beauty. To discover that nothing is ever truly lost. Not love. Not memory. Not the soul. The shadows are birds. The birds are souls. And every poem is evidence that something beautiful once flew through us. Stranded Hearts: A Dark Romantic Anthology of Love Poetry by Gesso Cocteau © 2026

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May 18, 2026

Why I Create Dark Feminine Visual Poetry: Artist Journal

An Artist Journal reflection on the daydream places that feel remembered, the spiritual recognition held in a glance, and the dark feminine visual poetry I create from those inner worlds.

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Gesso Cocteau Bronze Sculptures & Fine Art

STRANDED HEARTS

An Anthology of Love Poetry

THE ENCHANTED SHOE