When I was in first and second grade, I could draw things quite well. When I was in high school, I wanted to do figurative work. I think everybody goes through that stage that wants to be a sculptor. I actually wanted to work in bronze. I always followed the art thing because I thought, "What else am I going to do?” Not the kid's dream, but it's definitely the dream.

When I was a kid, I used to go every day and play in the woods. Just the moss, the trees, the leaves, the creatures. This it's what I've always loved: that there was this material I could use that was 100% natural, that would hold things together.

I have an MFA in sculpture. I have cast in bronze and iron and discovered very quickly it's not something you can do alone. Not everybody can have a foundry.

I took a paper-making class and I absolutely fell in love with the material. It's sculpture, what it can do. I think the most important thing to me in everything that I look at and enjoy is what light does.

There's no glue in paper — just the fiber. It's this natural process, beating papyrus or sugarcane: Beat that fiber. If it was wet, laying against each other and it dried, there's molecular bonding between the fibers — a natural process that creates this material. The more you beat it, the more it shrinks as it dries. It can bend steel.

There's two different ways of looking at perfect. The idea of a perfect leaf, perfectly symmetrical or perfectly balanced. Then when you think of something like the functionality of a leaf, and the way there are veins and if you have a hole in the leaf, there are ways of getting beyond the hole to nourish the rest of the leaf. It's a different perfection. It has to do with functionality and life rather than aesthetics.

We look at ourselves and compare ourselves to any ideal, pretty versus not, graceful versus clumsy. We compare ourselves and find ourselves wanting. You can see so many people suffering from that. Art is often guilty of imposing that same kind of standard.

This piece has meaning. I'm not just trying to create something that you find aesthetically pleasing. That's not the point. I want to make you think about what we're doing versus what nature would have us do, nature's design versus human design. We've drawn this line between ourselves and nature but everything's interdependent.

When humans die, especially those whom we've known and loved, it's a deep loss, but we need to back up, look at the fact that if humans didn't die, how many of us would there be? Somehow that we can be part of the earth again, that we can nourish, that we can make way for others. Life is an awesome gift. It's also finite. Life is such a gift, but it needs to be revered.

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