Artist's Statement

My work explores the senses, especially the relationship between touch and sight. Many of my sculptures are made to touch or to evoke the sense of touch. Touch is intimate, reciprocal, diffuse and open-ended. It reveals new realms of meaning and a profoundly different way of knowing. As someone said, "When you look, it's an object, but when you touch, it's a journey."

My sculptures are constructions made with a variety of sensuous materials such as rawhide, wood, copper, rope and stone, that are rich in tactile appeal and expressive qualities. Some are small enough to cradle, others large enough to enter.

Recent sculptures appeal to the deep somatic senses activated by what we see--bodily responses such as pleasure, tension, disorientation, and emotion. They explore the interactions between outside and inside, body and mind, organic and industrial, protection and vulnerability, primitive and cyborg. They ask how we know what we know, who and what we are, and the possibilities for adaptation and transformation.

My research into perception engages me with neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, engineers, psychologists, philosophers, educators, art historians, artists, designers and people involved with disabilities. I am writing a book, By the Light of the Body: Touch in the Visual Arts.