Artist statement
I’ve been trying to figure things out by observing the language of gesture, posture and facial expression ever since I can remember. How people express themselves without words, especially when they don’t even know they’re expressing themselves, is endlessly fascinating. (And I don’t exclude myself from this study.)
My small figurative sculptures began to emerge during the isolation of the pandemic years. They have continued to arrive like visitors from the deep unknown, characters who have been waiting for me to discover them. They often seem to arrive with backstories they wish to share. Many of them are elders like myself. Others are children, some are animals. I have empathy, call it love, for them all. I have begun inviting them to tell me their stories, and I write their words in their own voices. I have studied and taught movement for decades, working as a dance/theatre artist and a movement analyst and therapist. I have always been intrigued by the ways verbal and nonverbal articulation intersect. All this prior experience in-forms my sculpture. |
Exhibitions
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2024 -
2023 - |
Voice Gallery, Santa Barbara, with Goleta Valley Art Association
Museum of Contemporary Art, Arte del Pueblo, Santa Barbara Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara City College, Small Image juried show [Sold] Contemporary Arts Workshop, Santa Barbara, Ready to Hang Voice Gallery, Santa Barbara, juried show – Arias Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara City College, Small Image juried show |
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Living sculpture:
moving and making
In 2020, the inter-art process I call Living Sculpture began to crystallize. Living Sculpture draws together three threads of practice – free movement, sculpture and writing. As this weaving of threads came about during the pandemic, when life slowed down, I noticed my relationships to space and time both internally and in the natural world had been altered. I was curious to share the resulting creative process with others; and I first explored it with a small group of colleagues/students familiar with Depth Movement.
The primary thread is movement – it has been my medium for more than fifty years, as dancer, choreographer, teacher and therapist.
I have been drawn to writing in many contexts over the years, both creative and academic, and am grateful to have longstanding writing groups, both weekly and monthly to support and stimulate my writing process.
And though I’ve loved forming things with clay since childhood, and studied sculpture and handbuilding since 2010, it was during the pandemic that I created over fifty small heads. Each time, when I turned a bit of clay in my palms, the cracks and folds suggested a face. That was the beginning; the figures now have bodies and relationships.
The primary thread is movement – it has been my medium for more than fifty years, as dancer, choreographer, teacher and therapist.
I have been drawn to writing in many contexts over the years, both creative and academic, and am grateful to have longstanding writing groups, both weekly and monthly to support and stimulate my writing process.
And though I’ve loved forming things with clay since childhood, and studied sculpture and handbuilding since 2010, it was during the pandemic that I created over fifty small heads. Each time, when I turned a bit of clay in my palms, the cracks and folds suggested a face. That was the beginning; the figures now have bodies and relationships.
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workshop
The first formal workshop offering was called Living sculpture: moving and making: A workshop in the environment at Dartington Hall in Devon, UK, July, 2020. The description was as follows:
First, we discover our own felt vocabulary, as we come alive in three dimensions, in resonance with the atmosphere and rhythms of landscape and skyscape. Moving and stopping in time and space, we receive our changing gestures, positions and perspectives. Our bodies and faces speak as we create a living, communicative sculpture garden in the human/nature field.
We extend this by each person midwifing from a handful of clay, the emergence of a face or figure. There will be time, after making, to let your creature speak to you, as you write their words.
We then explore living sculpture again, moving in small groups in-formed by and incorporating the figures we have made. Participants will discover for themselves whether and how the work with clay and writing affects their experience of moving with others in the landscape, and in particular whether the creative processes have stimulated greater embodied empathy, for oneself, others, and the natural world. Finally, the groups will share their experience in movement and in words.
First, we discover our own felt vocabulary, as we come alive in three dimensions, in resonance with the atmosphere and rhythms of landscape and skyscape. Moving and stopping in time and space, we receive our changing gestures, positions and perspectives. Our bodies and faces speak as we create a living, communicative sculpture garden in the human/nature field.
We extend this by each person midwifing from a handful of clay, the emergence of a face or figure. There will be time, after making, to let your creature speak to you, as you write their words.
We then explore living sculpture again, moving in small groups in-formed by and incorporating the figures we have made. Participants will discover for themselves whether and how the work with clay and writing affects their experience of moving with others in the landscape, and in particular whether the creative processes have stimulated greater embodied empathy, for oneself, others, and the natural world. Finally, the groups will share their experience in movement and in words.