Show Me The Way And I’ll Go There: Sculptural Explorations
Chinatown Soup, New York, November 2022

Each sculpture in this series is a small altar. More than thirty-six objects, including a wooden shrine, and twenty-two small heads, each with a diamond set into the third eye, were made by hand. The metalworks were carved in wax, cast in bronze and silver, and patinated with fire.

They were arranged on a dragon tetrahedron crystal grid, a pyramid-shaped layout of sacred geometry traditionally used to focus intention. Here, the grid extended the energy of the shrine, inviting visitors to leave offerings at the altar: fruit, candles, messages. Its focus was self-healing and the protection of children. Selenite, citrine, and smoky quartz rested on the altar to amplify intention.

The wooden shrine was built as a hexagon, symbolic of harmony, balance, and the union of polarities. Kyanite, a protective stone, was placed to mark each of its sides, surrounding the all-seeing Dragon’s Eye incense burner. The triangle, a symbol of protection, is the grid’s foundation.

Metal is the teacher here. It is malleable and strong, and under heat and pressure it changes, as we do. Diamond, set into the third eye of each head, holds the same lesson.

Shaped by my Reiki practice, the work sees the body as a vessel, a conduit for energies larger than ourselves, and each vessel as a shrine to guides, ancestors, mothers, and love. Altar, alter: a place to acknowledge change, beginning with ourselves.

The works were made to be experienced, not only seen: weight and texture in the hand, incense in the air, chimes sounding through the room.

Show Me The Way And I’ll Go There is an invitation to leave something at the altar (an intention, a dream, a wound) and allow it to transmute.

Ceremonial Vessels

Ceremonial Vessels are objects made to be used.

Each piece was shaped by hand in gilding metal, copper, bronze, brass, and steel, through planishing, raising, and chasing, alongside wood lathe work and carving. Surfaces were patinated with fire and borax, and some were made using mokume-gane, the Japanese art of folding and layering metal.

The pieces are to be experienced with all the senses: the sight of fire-colored metal, the weight and texture in the hand, the scent of incense and warmed oils, and sound. The vessels ring, and the bells chime.

Some vessels were made to burn essential oils for fragrance, with abacus-style sliding beads and small spoons for lifting out the warmed oil for use in self-care. The cabinet works were inspired by medicinal containers, and I used them to store my own powdered incenses. Each is a small apothecary for ritual, where scent is kept and, when opened, released.