Dogwood Dancers
A farmer was pruning her dogwood trees on a farm in Friday Harbor, and she gave me the discarded branches which I hauled off to my studio. Out of an enormous pile of branches, I found three that formed a perfect neck, torso and arms, all-in-one. I made their dresses from a vintage Chinese umbrella, their heads of papier-mache. When they were ready to sell, a friend and art collector came to the show, walked up to the bald dogwood dancer, and said, “These are mine”. She was also bald, from chemotherapy.
The dancers now reside in my mother’s home in Arizona. My friend didn’t survive leukemia. The dancers are growing brittle, but the afternoon sun shines through their skirts, illuminating them.
