KNIGHTS: A SCULPTURE SERIES AFTER 9/11
“The replay of 9/11 still permeates my psyche, though I could not write my thoughts down until more than three years later. Yet visually and viscerally I began to address it in my art, and could unconsciously relive and relieve the moments when I was vulnerable and distraught. With my hands automatically following orders from the petit tyrant of my brain, I refined another layer of my being: a figurative manifestation of myself—fearless and certain. The part of me that felt powerless and unprotected on that sunny day in September was now fully protected by a warrior-woman, on call to lead in any battle.
With this sculpture series, I gradually reinvented the notion of the knight—but not in service of war, not even male; rather, a female bodyguard and protective spirit that cannot or will not completely disclaim insecurity in the face of danger:
A figure
Naked albeit
Vested in Finery
Defenseless Armored
Vulnerable Invincible.
A Monument
Sewing Template
Gesture of
Life’s Tease:
Random Precise.
A Warrior
Still yet
Commanding.
Thrust into Battle
Fragility Strength.
It is this cauldron of opposites, contradictions and internal battles existing in each of us that excites me in my life and in my art. By scrambling expectations (male/female, power/vulnerability, warrior/peacemaker) I attempt in my sculpture to ask questions, agitate, alarm, and arouse a visceral response in myself and in my viewers. With a combination of fused wood, metal, stone and fiber, I arrive at a form that makes me feel safe.”