I get up and I start almost right away I feel like I'm having fun and it feels good.

When you get into this type of thing, it's very, very soothing.

I realize while I'm doing this that I'm back in my childhood again playing with dolls.

Ok, well, I have to now think about th We#ll do some eyes Ok, I#m gonna give her a litt And then later, I might give her a couple of teeth.

She picked her leggings out this morning, but her leggings are a mess.

I don't know.

Is she happy?

When I work, I go into a different world I just wanna do my thing.

I started out as a stone carver.

I was one of the very few women artists working with that I loved the idea that I was work ng with this unyielding material and somehow I was going to make it into something else.

You take this rough block weighing around 250 lbs.

and in the end it#s going to be this sensuous thing but the process took forever It#s a tremendous feeling of success to have accomplished that.

Maybe it has to do with trying to show that you can do anything in s 15 years ago, I underwent the first of what would be four major spine surgeries that ere going to repair a curvature that had plagued me since my childhood.

The recovery was brutal I didn't know if I#d even be able to walk a let alone make art.

While I was rehabilitating, I rediscovered paper maché which is a material I'd played with as a kid and I had used throughout my years teaching.

The beauty of it was that I could work at the kitchen table I didn#t have to have a studio.

These little characters started pouring out.

And it became really my most personal work.

I remember the first piece I actually made was a blue van.

It's a very crude piece.

And I hold onto this piece because it is the first.

The year 1979.

It's been part of my dreams, memories for forever.

We took it everywhere.

We followed very few rules We slept in it, ate in it, it was a part of the family.

And there it is, with the six of us in it.

And in it is Dad me turning around, probably telling Probably Rebecca and Joc, who are sitting here and one#s looking out the And this is Joc, I think she's talking to... Ben... and Jon He's in a little red sweat When it was time to set up the beds at night, And Rebecca slept up there.

And across the front there was anothe two more kids, and someone slept on the floor.

And it was a rule that every night when you went to sleep, you needed to write a little bit about what you did that So here he is.

This is the blue van.

Where did you come up with the idea of this little elf?

It started with this little tree.

It was a piece of that plant.

And I thought, well I can#t throw it out.

It#s too pretty.

So I put thi under it.

I didn't know if it should be a mouse or an elf?

So A melf?

I was trying to get yo I like it.

Because it's f I mean, really, you don't need Just paper.

Where did you come up with the idea for these two?

Anybody that loves to dance that's what that's about.

When we were in Ireland, we They were holding onto each other, and they were singing at the top The joy of dance.

This is what happens at every restaurant now You go into a restaurant, but one of them is just constantly then they split the check and leave, walking away on their phones.

It#s kinda what happens these days I know.

And and thinking, aren't they I just messed up a little bit of his nose.

But you see, I can take some green And just paint over it I could just go back I love him.

Kids get it.