Well hello there. I've been toying with the idea of firing up a blog again for a while. It looks like the last ditch efforts were an actual post on my old blog from 2015 and a sad half finished draft post here from 2016. I read back over the entire "old blog" and while most of it spans from 2009-2012 (with a few attempts at starting it up again in 2013, 2014 AND 2015) I found that despite my life being drastically different now, my intent to share information about sculpture processes was there even then.
For those of you who don't know me, and have never read my old blog, I am a sculptor living and working in Philadelphia. I create primarily animal sculpture, working in clay towards pieces that then will have molds made of them and be cast in plasters, resins, and sometimes bronze. My work tends to have a duality to it... cute but dark, funny but sad, strange but true. Each piece is about human emotion and I feel like people can look at these different "feelings" however is most comfortable to them. The animals generally make these ideas more accessible, but I always have seen the animals as stand ins for humans...shadows of us.
In addition to sculpting, I teach sculpture at PA Academy of the Fine Arts, Stockton University and Fleisher Art Memorial. I also do commission work for various artists and companies in and around Philadelphia (and beyond). My family consists of my 8.5 year old daughter, Olivia, who is turning out to be a pretty great human and Paul Romano, my boyfriend, who is an incredible painter and designer. I have one cat at home named Sweetie Bird and the studio cat is Victoria. You'll meet them all I'm sure.
My idea here, this time around, is to focus on the why and the how of what I'm making. I talked a lot last time about what I was making and sometimes got into the reasons why and how it was done. But those things are definitely so much more important to me now. I also love the idea of this blog as a "public sketchbook", or a place that offers more insight into my world than sites like Instagram and Facebook do. I'm looking for more depth than those other platforms have to offer, I suppose. So hi, and I look forward to adding more soon.
This is me working on a piece for Arch Enemy Art's June 2018 exhibition As Above, So Below II