For me the biggest idea is “making yourself at home”. The point is that it’s never to late to start over, to open yourself up to the possibility of new experiences based on who you are, and not who you just hope to be. You have to be realistic about it, but, really tapping into resources that you have and ideas that are floating around in your mind and trying new things. In the front of my new book, “Making Yourself at Home," there’s a small picture of a bronze sculpture I did. It’s a woman, a nude woman, and the view that you see in the book is from her back, a very strong back. I called it “A Real Woman” because she has big hips and thighs, and her breasts are dropping a little bit, and it’s not a romanticized version of a woman. A lot of male sculptures when they are sculpting women, usually sculpt them with basically men’s bodies with a little roundness, and some bosoms that I’ve very rarely seen on any woman.



“A Real Woman” epitomizes being comfortable in your own skin, and I think it’s really important not to feel that you have to be this romanticized version of what women are supposed to look like. When I looked at the woman that I was sculpting, who was a fellow sculptress, she was just so comfortable in her body. She was comfortable naked. She was comfortable with the body that she had, and I wanted to capture that feeling. And she really was beautiful because she was authentic. She was real. I think women have to get away from the preconceived idea of what we think we’re supposed to look like, and just say yes, be comfortable in your skin, but be healthy. You can always afford to lose a few pounds if you really are overweight. Think of your health, but be comfortable in who you are and discover the person within.