Artist's Statement

As a sculptor, I feel so fortunate to be learning about the relation of art and life as I study this great principle stated by Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism: “The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites.” It has had me be deeper as an artist and know myself better.  I also understand more why, as a young girl on the Kibbutz, I was swept and felt composed by the beauty and mystery of African art and the passionate sculpture of Rodin.

I love sculpture and feel so expressed working with clay in particular. The opposites of heaviness and lightness, hardness and softness, matter and space are made one in this medium. In my life, I have, as others have, shuttled back and forth between being severe and then being sympathetic in a way that confused me and made me ashamed. But in every good piece of sculpture hardness and softness, are beautifully, sensibly related! As I create a bust of a woman and see for instance how malleable clay hardens it thrills and inspires me. I feel surer that I can be both firm and yielding for one good purpose.

I love these sentences from Eli Siegel’s lecture, “Aesthetic Realism and Beauty: Sculpture” which describe what the sculptor experiences and goes after:

“There is a feeling of resisting nature opposed by insistent man, and man saying to insistent, waiting nature, ‘I can find form in you, and I’ll get that form out of you though you resist, though you’re marble, though you’re bronze, though you’re diorite, though you’re granite, and now though you’re steel—though you’re anything, I’ll get beauty out of you. I don’t care how you come, I don’t care what aspect of the mineral kingdom you may show yourself as, I’ll show you I can get beauty out of you.”  

As you will see, in some of the comments about my work, I quote questions I was asked in Aesthetic Realism consultations. If you'd like to know more, click here.