I’ve been sculpting, drawing and sewing since childhood and have pursued dollmaking all my life. For more than 30 years I’ve explored the anthropomorphic genre of figurative sculpture and was the first artist ever to be inducted into NIADA with a completely anthropomorphic portfolio. At the heart of my daily practice is an abiding sense of sustainability—a commitment to using organic, archival materials. My dolls are constructed like antique china dolls, with heads, hands and feet or shoes directly sculpted from high-fire porcelain or stoneware clay (as might be done with a potter’s wheel), pigmented with high-fire ceramic stains, then fired in a kiln and finally sealed in pure beeswax. They are then sewn onto an armatured or articulated cloth body. The costume is either fully removable, or integrated into the doll’s body design, depending on my intentions.

Likewise, vintage apparel and linens beyond restoration are the mainstay of my fabric stash and costuming impulses. Every component of a piece informs my process, and often a nuance of personality will arise out of the fabric remnant itself or from a button, buckle or bit of lace—my subtler way of doting on both the planet and the palpably silent past of such storied objects. Since moving to New York City in 2008, I have been incrementally learning various aspects of stop-motion animation, towards the ultimate goal of creating my own short (and feature-length) films.