Artist's Statement

The sculptures that I create spring from deeply felt personal experience and from the experience of people who I am close to. They also reflect some of the universal experiences of being human; life experience of men and women of diverse cultures, ages and backgrounds, particularly with respect to inner experience and relationship. I sculpt in clay and wax and do the bronze casting and patinas myself.

Symbols and metaphors used in my sculptures include labyrinths and mazes, which have been used throughout art history as a metaphor for the individual life.

Cultural and mythological symbols include ravens, longboats, and navigational symbols from my Nordic culture, the Quetzalcoatl or plumed serpent of the Aztec world, the crane, a cultural symbol of Japan, and others from the cultures that I have close experience of through my husband and his family. I use these symbols to express different aspects of inner experience such as the duality inherent in human nature.

Recent work utilizes uprooted boats as a metaphor for entering into the unknown in life. The world-wide refugee crisis that is ongoing sparked this series of sculptures. The crisis has affected 65.6 million people who have been displaced worldwide, more than at any time in history since WWII. The unknown in life also includes the many ways in which we all experience being shaken from our roots, upended from the familiar and cast into the unknown, such as through loss of health, relationship, work: Suspended without a place to rest, we hover. Or we set out into a terrifying unknown.