BREAKING UP The beautiful stone is the start of a beautiful relationship. There are multiple layers in the relationship. Then cracks appear, then slashes and breakages, and finally the parting. Each one goes in a different direction. It’s a sad, bewildering, and unhappy experience. The only thing I did was carved the eyes. The rest is in the stone. I stood it upright to show both sides of the story.
DEPLETED Sculptures don’t need to be realistic in order to convey emotions. Depleted is devoid of detail and captures the mood.
LOOSING MYSELF IN BITS AND PIECES Over the years I begin to lose my vision, my hearing, my mobility, parts of myself to surgery. Eventually I lose myself entirely. I’m gone, but life continues. I expressed this by having all my features in the negative part of the face. The background is transparent tinted Plexiglas to show the life around it.
PENSIVE This figure can either sit on a base or on the edge of a table, desk, windowsill, or anywhere else.
DANIELLE This girl is alone, sad, and vulnerable. Wrapped in a shawl, naked.
GRIEF Here is a couple in grief so deep that they can’t give or even accept support. Their heads are turned away from each other. Their arms though touching are hanging limp or slack. Their bodies are barely touching. What I had in mind are people surviving the loss of a loved one, a couple in mourning. Could be a powerful reminder at a cemetery or museum to the Holocaust or victims of terrorism. Indoors or in public outdoor spaces.
PLEA Seen from the back, this person is communicating with God. The front is highly polished and reveals the beauty of the tiger eye stone. The back, unseen here, is left crude and untouched, the imperfection of man.
SWASTICIDE The spear-shaped like the Star of David stabbing into the broken swastika trying to crawl away from the strong armies of the countries that united to resist the evil regime in World War II.
PAINFULLY SHY The figure is turned into herself. Shoulders crunched, one of my friends called it the last submissive woman.
SPENT Totally exhausted and in despair.
TOO THREATENING TO DEAL WITH They didn’t speak up during the Holocaust They don’t speak up when they are abused, they don’t speak up when they see injustice. It’s too threatening to deal with. It’s safer to hide in their personal nooks Not to see, not to hear, not to speak up.
SPIRIT OF ISRAEL This sculpture shows how difficult it is to help a totally exhausted and helpless person. I was inspired by stories of the Israelis bringing smuggling in survivors of the Holocaust illegally through the British blockade.
AGONY Lying in agony on a pile of railroad ties (symbolizing the Holocaust) this survivor with a clenched fist is still strong and resilient. The sculpture is on permanent exhibit at the Ghetto Fighters Museum in Israel.
REMEMBER CHINA A non-Chinese person with a Chinese background represented by the bamboos which are carved in the back. The bamboos are a memory, a reminder, not tangible. It’s placed on a scroll. That could only be expressed on clear lucite.
STRUGGLE Four hands, pushing, pressing, tugging, pulling.
EXIT Whatever one exits – a country, a job, a relationship, or life, one takes it along – memories, experiences, successes, and failures, hopes and dreams. The accumulation is heavy. The load which is part of the body is tied with a rope.