I create sculpture using both found objects and bronze. I transform actual clothing with discards such as used buttons, anonymous photographs, forgotten correspondence and natural materials, leaves, dried flowers—remains from my garden. It is my desire to suggest the fleeting, beautiful yet bittersweet nature of our existence.

A ‘special occasion dress’ can be a powerful metaphor for the cycle of life: new it is fresh and beautiful, worn with pleasure, then put in the closet where it fades and is eventually cast aside, very much like leaves falling from a tree in autumn. I work with actual clothing, transforming it with found objects such as buttons, jewelry, photos, letters, artifacts, sewing articles as well as natural materials: leaves, dried flowers. My desire is to create an expressive artwork that can be beautiful yet disquieting; giving homage to the distant past.

I regularly search eBay for material—one my most amazing purchases is a group of about one hundred love letters all written to the same man, Allen H. Watkins, during the years of 1928-32. The thirty different women who wrote these letters lived up and down the east coast of the U.S. The letters were put away in a trunk and forgotten for seventy years. The family never knew the letters existed and when Allen died, everything was sold to a dealer. Thankfully for me, they surfaced on eBay.

When I first read the letters, I was awestruck; the personalities of the women come through loud and clear. The letters are full of their passion and humor as well as their exquisite penmanship and unique stationary. These letters are gems; they clearly reflect the flavor of the time in which they were written as well as the hopes, desires and frustration of the women who wrote them. A recent series, “Dearest Allen," incorporates casts of dresses with sections of the letters, each one inspired by one of the women who wrote to Allen so long ago.