Portfolio of Works

Whisperers

Ancestors like past selves, continue to whisper. Whispering implies intimate communication; long held secrets, but it is faulty by nature. Much like the whisper down the lane game, a shared story changes from one person’s telling to the next. A memory becomes more distorted as the retelling continues down the lane. But we hold onto it. By transforming individual faces into connected groups, I'm exploring the concept of family with this ongoing series, not just as a nuclear unit but as a long-lasting lineage. Graphite is used as the surface treatment to evoke the weight of legacy that is passed down through generations. My faces, ambiguous in gender, and ethnicity, encourage viewers to see a shared human condition. 

The Lonely Girls  

The Lonely Girls Project consists of sculptures inspired by women living with Alzheimer's disease. Installations have been on view in Phoenix, AZ, Rehoboth Beach, DE, Jenkintown, PA and Newtown, PA. Click here to view a short video. The work began after my mother was diagnosed with the disease. Watching her navigate her remaining years coupled with statistics indicating among other things that women with dementia outnumber men two to one, created a sense of urgency in me to raise awareness. Each work is crafted to evoke the balance between the physicality of form and the intangible essence of memory, serving as both a reflection and a protest of this health battle faced by many. I am striving to capture the transient nature of memory and the bitter reality of its deterioration. Life is difficult for women throughout their lives but becomes especially hard once an illness prevents them from engaging in society as usual. When that illness is dementia, it’s nearly impossible. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, of the 6.2 million people with Alzheimer’s disease who are age 65 or older in this country, almost two-thirds are women. Women in their 60s are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease over the rest of their lives as they are to develop breast cancer. These works are a call to awareness and empathy.

“Any of the 'lonely girls' …, tangled wires popping from their cranial cavities, are apt images of what I feel like a dozen times a day when I botch a formerly easy task essential to my independence, which means I require Peter’s help for a clean-up (like a broken glass) or a do-over. To me, McBride's choice of jack-jumped-out-of-the-box electrical wiring as a metaphor for kinked and snarled dementia-brain pathways is brilliant: the jumbled, disconnected wires reflect my feelings of being broken and useless in daily life."

- Gerda Saunders

 Partial funding has been made possible by the Puffin Foundation Ltd.  

Grace of the Present Moment

In meditation the mind is often compared to a tree where thoughts are like leaves that come and go but the trunk remains still. Connecting to patience, branches take years to grow. Branches reach up to the sky while the roots anchor into the earth. Her hands are in Shuni Mudra pose symbolizing patience.  With a headdress, her mind fills with growth indicating a deep connection to nature and matching the intent of the mudra.

New work and an assemblage of the piece Truth from Within 

In Celtic culture, tree branches represent strength and endurance. Symbolically, a tree branch also represents the interconnectedness of all living things. Just like the branches of a tree are connected to the trunk, we are all connected to one another through our experiences, choices, and actions. These works serve as a visual response to our current moment.  

Prudence

Initially, this piece was titled No Evil Please, acting as a plea for a world without corruption and cruelty. This concept came from a place of reaction - an immediate response to the suffering in the world at the time. The new title Prudence reframes the work not as an outward-facing request, but as a personal meditation on thoughtful awareness. It was the one sculptural piece I completed after moving across the country and entering a new liminal space. 

Truth from Within

Between Two Worlds 

First featured at the Phoenix Art Museum in 2017, these pieces use yoga as a metaphor for navigating modern turmoil. Through Child's pose for comfort and Corpse pose for final surrender, I am exploring our collective fundamental fears.  

“The most striking and thought-provoking work in Shelter is Constance McBride’s Truth From Within. A prostrate human figure about two-thirds life size is built from cracked and jagged layers of ceramics stitched together with wire. Walking around the sculpture, one notices that the figure’s skull has been cracked open and the top of its head is missing entirely; the emptiness inside has been left a burned-out gray-black color. The pose of the figure recalls prayer but judging by the utter disrepair of the body — skin sloughing off, the lower body connected to the torso with mean-looking loops of black wire — prayer has proven not to be enough. Truth From Within asks whether faith and prayer can be an adequate form of shelter, or whether they serve merely as a band aid for endless suffering.” - Deborah Krieger

Melancholic Mama

Society's narrow beauty standards often exist in opposition to the real female experience. Borrowing the title from Hannah Wilke’s 1975’s S.O.S. series, seemed appropriate for this collection. The use of graphite creates a tension between what at first seems to be a shiny exterior of a garment and what actually is the textured reality of skin. Skin reveals a narrative of survival—imprints of a life lived.  These marks—whether from childbirth or the 'storms' of existence—are not scars of shame, but a record of resilience that deserves to be honored. 

The Lonely Girls

The project began after my mother moved from her home to an assisted living facility. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and lived out her last years between two worlds.  What started as a portrait of her became a collection of works inspired by the women she lived with. 

Early Figures 

These figures are freestanding with the exception of the wall hanging piece, Time to Fly. (Trapped can be either placed on a plinth or hung.)

Natural World

Early works in clay influenced by dreams and nature with a bit of Greek and Celtic mythology mixed in.  

I transform disparate materials into unexpected new narratives through cutting, pasting and layering, blending the natural world with the feminine experience. This series honors the tension between the human and the organic. The works capture the vulnerability and resilience of a fluid identity bound by the physical self. Some works tell a specific story, while others merely imply one.

Some exhibitions feature one or two installations. Others include a site-specific installation. See more images via individual links 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2018, 2015.

Shelter from the Storm - an installation on view in the vestibule of Old City Publishing, in Philadelphia, PA from April 29, through September 2, 2025. Made possible by InLiquid.

This installation captures a moment of introspection and connection. In Celtic culture, tree branches represent strength and endurance. Symbolically, a tree branch also represents the interconnectedness of all living things. Just like the branches of a tree are connected to the trunk, we are all connected to one another through our experiences, choices, and actions. In yoga, Balasana (child's pose) is a symbol of surrender and protection, evoking the notion of finding shelter amidst life's storms. 

Childlike surrender opens the pathways of grace which, when there is nothing left to rely on, is all anyone has. Only in surrender can one truly open themselves up to receive, and only when receiving the universe’s love and grace can anyone give that love and grace to others. - Elephant Journal  

The Melancholic Joy of Living

A Solo Exhibition on view at Chesapeake Gallery, Harford Community College, Bel Air, MD ~ 11/18/24 - 1/3/25 ~ Listen to an interview with host Victoria Rose here: Art Watch Radio Interview  11-20-24

Liminal Spaces

Northeast - The Sacred Oak | Southwest - Sonoran Preserve 

The Lonely Girls

Kindred was on view at The Hook Experiment, Oxford, PA, December 2023

Must See Art: Kindred at The Hook Experiment by Melissa Jacobs, Main Line Tonight

Liminal Spaces 

Using an ancient Celtic symbol and elements existing within natural environments, raw and fired materials make designs reminiscent of a labyrinth; a sacred liminal place to center oneself in the midst of chaos.

Liminal Space: Southwest Desert. Arizona desert spirals were created with sand, dirt and bits of raw, slip cast and kiln fired debris collected from the Sonoran Preserve. In many cases, only a fossilized shell remains, referencing life’s fragility, resiliency and transience.

Liminal Space: Northeast Forest - Sacred Oak. The forest spiral incorporates tree branches (representing strength, growth, and the reach towards consciousness) along with sand and bark from The Sacred Oak of Berks County, PA. 

The Beauty of Stillness was on view at InLiquid Gallery at Crane Arts, Philadelphia, PA in October 2022. The Beauty of Stillness - For Your Consideration by Alice Chambers

Between Two Worlds

A solo exhibition held at Clay on Main in the village of Oley, in Berks County, PA. A full clay sculpted figure situated in corpse pose included with collected bits of Arizona desert debris. See a short video here.

From the Hearts of Stars

For this site-specific installation in a phICA repurposed shipping container in Phoenix, collected bits and pieces of Arizona desert debris were slip dipped and coated with under glazes and crawl glazes. Dirt from the Sonoran Preserve was spread across the floor.  An interactive component to the installation was included when I asked visitors to write their own thoughts on the wall, about how living in the desert impacts them.