I was raised with a hammer in my hand instead of a Barbie Doll, a Tool Queen. Pop took up carpentry after his heart attack. We lived with my grandparents until I was three, then we moved next door. When I was not hammering with Pop, Nanny Florence was teaching me to identify plants in her garden. There were no other playmates close. My favorite toy was a set of colored shapes that I could hammer into their negatives in a wooden bench similar to the tools I later made to produce my version of repoussé when I fell in love with metal.

 

Modern Dance experience was the turning point, the transition from early success with watercolor portraiture to my life’s work in three dimensional botanical portraits. Directing bodies in space is an exciting adventure in kinetic translation: lithe mass in lyrical motion inspires changing scale in sculpture, overlapping planes and sinuous lines in the rhythmic choreography of metal.

 

Every hammer stroke is part of a conceptual dance that takes place only once in the confluence of time, space and energy. Then it passes. 

 

This handmade work is one of a kind just like you are.  I dance with hammers!