I am a sculptor who lives in Santa Fe, NM. I use old growth, discarded wood from the Santa Fe area. Many of these trees are 300 years old, older than New Mexico has been part of the US. The history they carry is the base of my sculptures, my mind wanders to the raw beauty, the indigenous people, the europeans and all of the things that happened since the trees’ birth. These trees have died by natural causes, the history and memory they carry is the inspiration of each sculpture. I am a woman, who has used a chainsaw as my main tool for 23 years, before that is was mallet and chisel. I keep the forms fairly simple, this feels right to me. The surface of my work is a focus, I love to push the surface till it sings to me, whether it is charred to a crisp, bleached white, stained black or covered in beeswax, I have always been drawn to nature for inspiration. Drawings, prints, and castings are part of my practice. In using discarded wood, many of my pieces are fragile, I sometimes cast the wood in bronze, glass, stainless steel, concrete and aluminum. These are a kind of alchemy for me. I have also had installations of environments using sculpture and video for a totally immersive experience in exhibition spaces.
I have lived in Santa Fe for 37 years, and a professional artist for four decades. Wood has always been the base of my creative outlet. As a child growing up in rural Connecticut, the forest and river near my home was an everyday event. Bursting out of the house after school I couldn’t wait to get into the forest by the river, so many moments are retained and still define who I am, and I think of these connections when in the studio. I found safety in the forest, more so than at home. Giant boulders I would visit daily had secret names I gave them, they were my friends, I counted on them and they were always waiting for me. In the water of the riverbed lay some enormous boulders, submerged and smooth from the constant flow of water. I would stare at one in particular long and hard until it became a whale under water. I would shudder with the huge presence of it with wide eyes at what I was imagining. All of these influences helped me understand sculpture and the presence of it and its’ relation to the viewer, I still practice this and look for it today.