The making of "Ascension" was a very special journey for me. After 25 years as an internationally published illustrator and gallery painter, I needed a new challenge. Remembering how much I had enjoyed a sculpting class taught by Ethelia Patmagrian and figure drawing taught by Fiore Custode at Ringling College of Art and Design, I decided pursue sculpting and fell in love with art all over again.

My extensive experience in drawing and painting the human figure proved invaluable in sculpting. The freedom that I felt when pushing the clay and feeling the forms as the clay moved under my fingers was like a meditation. I felt that I had truly found my calling.

As I contemplated my work, I realized that what I wanted most, was not simply to sculpt a person and form a good likeness - I wanted to capture and express the human spirit.

So I first begin my work by choosing an emotion - what am I feeling? What do I want people to feel or think?

When I created "Ascension" I wanted to express the feeling of complete surrender;  capitulation. This woman is the embodiment of the spirit in surrender - there is no tension in her weightless body, no resisting. Simple surrender. The theme is continued the patina - the woman is lighter as she ascends heavenward. Where the cloth touches her body is also light - but as the cloth leaves her body and heads toward earth, it takes on the colors of earth and the feeling of gravity. Where the cloth pools upon the base, it is heaviest in both structural feel and in depth of color. 

I loved creating the contrast of the floating, flowing hair, the effortlessness of the figure in repose depicting the freedom of spirit against the weight and tether of the earthbound cloth. This is representative of how I feel when I sculpt - blissful surrender tethered to the weights of the world.