Several years ago, I began working primarily with the figure, mostly in the form of busts and heads. The early series has a particular personal energy: as a body of work, it feels quiet; there is a sense of stilled breath.

In the current work, this moment of quiet has become the focus. I have been using subtle gestures, specifically hand positions of holding and grasping, to explore the relationship of the body - our most direct experience of physical reality - to hidden, inner aspects of spirit and the world beyond physical.

Some of the figures have become quite understated; they take on a quality I think of as shadow, or ghost. The birds themselves, starting as only delicately visible, have begun taking flight away from the human form altogether, perhaps appearing in that moment when form separates from spirit.