Artist Statement

It has been 25 years since my husband and I left our loft in lower Manhattan with our two young children, in a radical move to Vermont. As two artists, it was clear that raising a family in the city was going to be challenging. Moreover, we wanted our children to experience rural life, free from adults hovering over them. Little did I realize that this shift would free me up in ways that I could not imagine. Within this rural space, I began to feel my soul again.

As an artist, walks in the silence of the woods are a very different and unique experience. I am acutely visual and take in every detail of what nature presents. Trees, fallen limbs, and patinated rocks become familiar friends. The textures of moss and lichen creep into my subconscious. Inevitably, it informs my work.

For the first twenty years of my life, I worked primarily in stone at studios at Columbia University and in Italy and Japan. I might have stayed on that path had an unexpected event not occurred. In 1979 I was diagnosed with two critical spinal conditions which required immediate surgery. One year of convalescence meant no heavy work. Friends invited me to try working with clay. This experience proved providential. I began pressing stone from my sculptures into the clay to texture it. Thus began my lifelong relationship of clay and stone. It is the heart of my practice.

During the last year, I began the series “The Nature of Things”. Each piece bears witness to my fascination with my environment. For now, I am exploring tree limbs. A collection of sunflower heads of all sizes awaits my attention next.

As artists, we interpret aspects of the world around us. Inevitably, there appears a point where we can depart from reality, where our hand takes over. That is the exact moment when reality yields to transcendence. That’s when art happens.