Dancers

Emotions are embodied; they don’t abstractly reside in our heads. The way we feel affects how we hold our bodies, and how we hold our bodies affects how we feel. Many of us, though, have become disconnected from our bodies, and thus our emotions, sometimes through the habits and rituals of modern life, and sometimes intentionally to escape our pain.

For many, the movement of dance can reconnect mind and body, often prompting a cathartic release. My sculptures capture this relationship between movement and the purifying expression of raw emotions, like joy, ecstasy, and despair.

Each dancer is sculpted in a wet felting process that starts with loose wool fibers that are transformed into strong, solid forms of interlocking fibers through manipulation by hand using soap and water. This musculature is then covered with a decorative felted ‘skin’ that serves both as a visual expression and a metaphorical protective membrane embracing the body as emotions are released.