♪♪
-He'll be cut in half somehow, or maybe bisected.
[ Dremel buzzing ]
♪♪
And you'll see half of him over here
and then one on the other side.
I think a lot of times when I look at them,
I think about like, if they were alive, like,
how would they move and how would they operate?
And to me, I can see it all in my head.
Like, it all just feels like it makes sense.
♪♪
The kind of work that I do is essentially ceramic collage.
So I find pre-existing pieces,
and then I take those and cut them apart and reassemble them,
because I want the work to all look like it was born that way.
It's really important to me that you look at it
and your first thought is,
"That's a figurine I've seen before."
And then your second thought is,
"Wait, that's something I've never seen before."
And so there's a puzzle in doing that.
And like making that sort of perfect born-that-way moment.
[ Objects clatter ]
I was out thrifting and I saw these two little vintage lambs,
and they were so adorable.
And I just remember looking at them
on the shelf in the thrift store
and just sort of having this vision in my mind
that I could take them apart and put them back together
and make them something different.
And that sort of started the whole thing.
Using a Dremel tool to cut things is a little hit or miss.
Sometimes it works beautifully
and sometimes it does not work at all.
Once I have the cuts made,
we'll either glue the two pieces together
or mix up the epoxy sculpting compound to do a big fill
to stick the pieces together.
Then I will get the paints out,
do all the color matching that I need to do.
I'll airbrush those on, then I'll do final brush work.
Put gloss coats on, polish it, sign the bottom.
Done.
[ Laughs ]
When I look at my work, I see humor mostly.
I just, I see this world
where things are funny and strange,
but they're nice.
It's sort of just this reflection of an unusual world
that we can have.
I like just opening that window of like...
Look at this thing you never thought of and now it's here.
♪♪
-Debra currently has sculpture in two local shows
at Orcas Paley in downtown Seattle
and at studio e gallery in Georgetown.
Learn more about Debra on her website
and follow her on Instagram.