dance in the body you have

2009 - steel and copper wire

Like wardrobe malfunction, this one was built around a duct tape dress form reinforced with plaster. Here's a close-up I shot while the top half was still on the form:

She was sloppy right from the start: I didn't snug the wire up against the form as much as I should have. I made up for it, to some extent, by pinching some of the horizontal steel wires together and wrapping them with copper wire.

Here is what the top half looked like after I cut it off the form and stitched it back together:

And here's the finished piece, photographed by Lynn Bohannon:

Unlike most of the girls, she doesn't hang. Instead, she sits on a little table I bought at a fabulous junk store that has since closed. The table was a little dinged up, but I painted it white and I think it's gorgeous. I had meant for the sculpture to be pear-shaped, but she turned out more like a butternut squash.

She has been in two shows. The first was at the AVA Gallery. I made the mistake of not sending the table with her. They displayed her on the floor next to something that looked like a pile of laundry tied up with string, and I have never quite forgiven them (or myself) for that.

The second show was at the Attleboro Arts Museum. I drove her down there myself, with her table. Everyone I met there was a total sweetheart. Here's my girl in the museum, waiting to be installed: