I read Emily Dickinson all last winter

wax, terra cotta, wood, paper, found objects

34x22x12"

Using Photoshop to replicate popular 19th-century darkroom compositing techniques, I made numerous images blending my photo with Emily Dickinson's only confirmed photogaph, taken when the writer was about 17 years old. I used the resultant meld of facial features to sculpt "I read Emily Dickinson all last winter." This lifesize piece is made of fired terra cotta overlaid with wax, with embedded locks of hair, flowers and leaves (some of which are from the grounds of the Dickinson House in Amherst). This piece rests on reproductions of Dickinson’s bound manuscripts, her “fascicles,” sewn with household thread.