Stick Figures create simple line drawings in space through strong gesture and stance. The women thus created-minimal sketches that invoke the totality-are symbolic and iconic of today's struggle to remain strong in the face of a darkening world and creative in the face of multiple losses and conflicting obligations. Images of bone, burned steel, bare branches, dust and ashes appear in the figures.

Work begins with the clay, which is my meditative focus-interactive and spontaneous. The clay responds to my touch as the form develops from bumps stuck on a cylinder. I fire the work myself. Earth and metal oxides painted on the form interact with the clay enhancing surface and texture, while allowing the clay's color to show through. Opening the kiln is always an "aha" moment as the possibilities of a limited palette become reality from the heat of the firing.

Jo-Ann Brody
9/14/02