I am a wood and found-object sculptor. Most recently, horses have been my primary subject, although I've also created sculptural landscapes. As my life has progressed, so has what I make and how I make it.

The desire to make something from nothing has always been a part of me. During my childhood—when  being one of six kids meant not having a lot of "stuff"—I knew I could go out into the woods and find tiny dishes for my dolls in the tops of acorns, make silverware from delicate branches, and arrange food using tiny seeds and berries.  These experiences developed into skills for scavenging and building. For fifteen years, I worked in New York prop making and design for national TV shows  and regional theatre.  As was the case in my childhood, in this business it was: “If you can’t buy it, build it.”  

My true artistic imagination awakened, however, when I moved out of the city and began teaching art. The lives and work of the artists I taught gave me the courage to think on my own, and try things in my own art.  Similarly, witnessing the creative process of children inspired me to think again like the child who searched for and built from flotsam and jetsam.

A longtime salvager, my studio was filled with foundry molds, architectural remnants and boxes of wood bits that I had accumulated as “objects of beauty.”  Things like industrial molds appealed to my senses—the quality of the wood, the studies in shapes, even the primary colors they were often painted.  But it was also the feeling that these pieces had previously been made and used, and then worn over time.  Reusing them was important to me, and I know that I wanted to assemble them for my art.

The first horse I made was a head. The mane was a flowing bit of furniture trim, and a black industrial mold in the shape of a number 9 served as the head and neck. The collected pieces of wood almost formed themselves into a horse; putting them together was a revelation to me.  Since then, I have continued to merge my love of horses with my passion for found-objects.  I translate knobs, chair backs, chandelier fixtures, and any other number of parts into horses, and I continue to salvage materials.  I am always on the lookout for a neck, a mane, a tail…