In a quiet corner of the studio, an intimate moment in a young dancer's day: the ritual of the new pointe shoe which must have its ribbons and elastic sewn on, its stiffness softened and shaped to suit the dancer's foot, a dozen minute adjustments made to its fit and feel.  She has the dancer's unconscious loveliness of line, even when alone and unobserved, a fallen shoulder strap and one bare foot, dressed in dancer chic (one leg warmer, oversized warm-up pants, and a dance bag stocked to meet any need).  She is hand-mounted on a replica of a hardwood dance floor crafted from strips of cherrywood

Dancers, because their physical bodies are the instruments of their expression, are an ideal subject for sculpture. Dance is not something that dancers do; dancers are the dance. In the twenty years or so that I spent teaching and choreographing dancers, I found them endlessly fascinating -- their physical beauty, their enormous strength, their heart-breakingly difficult careers, all touched me deeply and daily. I began these sculptures in order to explore visually what I had experienced as a dancer and as a teacher:

the visceral sensation of dance movement,

the freedom that comes as a result of great discipline,

and the poignancy of lives laid on the altar of Art.