For me, the impulse towards dollmaking began early in childhood, when I could often be found alone and engaged in a near-compulsion to draw people. This allowed me, paradoxically, to disengage from the real people in my world. Art has sustained me and provided a lifeboat in a world where I could easily have become rootless. I obtained a degree in painting, and did graduate study when the trend was strongly abstract, minimalist and cold. In mid-life, I came back to my beloved figures, a place of comfort. I like to depict ordinary intimate moments that occur between people and in families.
My process is simple; it involves hand-forming a figure from solid porcelain. Much of the planning is absent and the figure develops in a kind of back-and-forth relationship process. Finishing the figure as a “doll” was never the goal, but it seems to be the place I have fit into, and I do enjoy seeing the finished figures have a sort of “life” that is appreciated by collectors. Most recently my work involves creating the women and children from the paintings of Mary Cassatt.