My Mother Will Rise Again

"My mother was a ballerina. At 84 she chose a dangerous spinal replacement rather than living without her joy of dance. She did not survive the operation and was cremated. I asked to be given whatever remained with her ashes. Holding them, I vowed to make a sculpture, using those parts. Her spine is the negative of my dancing figures using her actual spine screws attached to its base. The hand drawn, laser cut butterfly wings propelling her upward are attached to her surgically repaired rotator cuffs. Her Escher-esque head and neck are hand-formed. The aura, earth and kinetic spiral are found objects."