Dallas artist celebrates ‘womanhood' with sculptures

Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? The two are intertwined in Dallas sculptor Kat Warwick's 'The Song of I' sculpture.

"What I'm doing right now is sketching in the symbol for woman," Warwick said working in her West Dallas outdoor studio. "Today we're celebrating women."

Warwick has been working on a sculpture, a bust of a woman's figure, for a while. This month, she asked social media for help finishing it, asking people to write one word that describes a positive trait of womanhood.

"So I turned to Facebook and I asked people to give me words," Warwick said. "The first word was courageous. The second one was power."

The list went on. Strength had the most comments.

"So the first one I carved in was 'to be strong'," Warwick said pointing to the spine of her sculpture. "This one really surprised me; its beauty and how we look was way down the list."

Warwick is carving some of the words in an ancient script along the sculpture's backbone, reflecting how long women have been living them.

"The idea that we're fragile flowers has never been true," Warwick said.

The travertine sculpture itself is not carved perfectly smooth, but like a woman's body, is perfectly flawed.

"Choosing to preserve the imperfections in the stone is what makes her perfect," Warwick said. "Grace of movement, strength, and volume; that we do take up space in the world."

Warwick plans to enter 'The Song of I" in the Texas National 2024 Exhibition and Competition next month."