23" x 21.5" x 18"

Vintage handmade rayon faille dress and tulle shoulder padding, found quilting cotton with metallic sparkles, scrap polyester satin and metallic cotton fabric, bespoke handmade ceramic beads, upcycled chicken wire, steel coat hangers, leather coat, scraps from other sewing projects as stuffing, aluminum fence wire, found copper jewelry wire and glass beads, thread.

This dragon is shedding her skin. All that is dull and no longer serves us, we slough off and raise our wings to come into a new life that sparkles. Here I began with a head handcrafted from a glittering scrap, the head of the new person I am becoming through intense work on my self. But I am yet still transforming, and a lot of that which is old and wrinkled is still with me, even as I rise.

So I portray this dragon with her bright potential emerging from all that once was, and even more triumphant for not having yet fully shed all her burdens.

This piece is most earnestly about using what we have on hand, spiritually and literally, to create positive change and alchemy in our lives. I found I did not have enough sparkly fabric to manifest a whole dragon. So I choose to take this as an opportunity, to make a dragon anyway. To show her as a being in the midst of her messy metamorphosis, to use what could be called fallibility to instead itself make the statement.

Photography by Ryan LaFever