My work is about transformation, metamorphosis, our evolution as a
species and as individuals. It has something to do with bearing
witness to History, and something to do with personal history: our
selves, our cells, our choices. Some pieces are pod-like, some
husk-like; some are membranes, skins that do/ do not contain the body,
reflecting the mutability, the tenuous nature of life. What it means
to be human. What we need, what sustains us. What we are made of,
what we make of ourselves.
I prefer to work with common materials—familiar, readily available:
plaster, pantyhose, twigs, paper, steel—for their simple physicality
as well as their metaphorical possibilities.
My work is implicitly political. I agree with William Carlos
Williams: ‘it is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die
miserably every day for lack of what is found there.’ I want my work
to offer hope—not simplistically, but defiantly, to encourage us in
our struggle to live consciously, graciously, with meaning and
dignity.