the sculptor

Once upon a time and in a former life, I sculpted more than I wrote. It's what came easily. It's what I'd studied since my early teens at the Corcoran in Washington, DC, and at l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Perugia, Italia. My first portrait commission came when I was sixteen.

I told Ariana that I'd immortalize her pout if she wanted. She did: I could not get her to smile.



This huge cement piece followed me home on a ship from Italy. It's all I have left from those days -- and it was the largest, heaviest thing I'd made. As you can see, I toyed with abstraction. When that bored me, I went back to creating life-size bodies (cast in resin from clay figures) that hung on the wall. A pair won First Place in a show judged by the sculpture curator of the National Gallery. Years ago.







Most of my work lives elsewhere, commissions that grace homes and offices. I played with various media: clay, stone, metal, pieces cast in bronze or cement. Resins, being toxic, disappeared from my world once I had children.

I began doing more portraits, such as the one commissioned of this young boy.

I loved working from life, getting to know the clients, until one day I didn't. I had three commissions in a row that made me wonder if this could possibly be my calling.

Which is when I decided to follow my other love: writing.

And here I am.


  © 2010 Normandie's Place