These sculptures are part of a series, titled OviOvaOvum, which I made in response to a curious gift: a set of emu eggshells that contained the petrified bodies of developing chicks. Out of reverence for life, intrigued by the notion of body as object, and motivated by the beauty and emotion of the birds, I began to work with the gift sculpturally. In this series of work I closel examine the fragility of life and the thin veil of death, as the sculptures and the birds themselves speak to the emotional contours of illness, rejuvenation, loss, and comfort. My final sculptural act for the series was to release the bird’s body through the pyre of a wood fired kiln, the

flash of which remains on the ceramic sphere presented, evoking the natural cycle of birth and death.