The notion of dragons throughout history has been many things from the Mushkhushu creature on the Ishtar Gate to the contemporary binge craving drama Game of Thrones…but let’s travel back to where dragons spawned from a big blue chair in my living room… Growing up my family was never closer than when we were engaged in a quest together through books, movies, and games. One of my fondest memories was sitting down with my dad and brother anticipating a dragon story before bedtime. I remember us getting sleepy and laying our heads down, only enhancing the bellowing voices and growls of the characters he played in the stories he read. (I knew how the dwarf song from the hobbit sounded long before the movie ever came out.) I was introduced to the art world through the characters my dad brought to life by drawing, writing, and story-telling. The imagination he shared and cultivated inevitably put me on the path to sculpting and bringing my own creations to life. 

 

                 The journey from adolescence to adulthood is full of heartache, misery, and misfortune. We deflect these facts of existence in different ways, but at about nineteen or twenty years old, the truth of life starts to creep in. Death, fear, sorrow…these are all sentiments that transform us. As we mature we grow scales, horns, wings, and eventually become something no longer understandable. Reaching adulthood and discerning human nature is about accepting all of who you are, and not solely the parts that are uncomplicated to cope with. The process of sculpting these dragons is about giving myself permission to grow, accept, and challenge the circumstances I am faced with and in turn utilize the science of body language to explore intimate relationships and emotions of the human experience.