My work explores the human body at the borderline between the beautiful and the grotesque. In one line of work, I challenge conventions of beauty by presenting alterations of the bodies of babies. Babies are supposed to be the most perfect human specimens. I open up their bodies, distort them, and render their soft flesh in hard materials. These alterations are not intended to repel. They retain their comforting innocence, while interrogating our ideals of perfection. In another line of work, I depict the body's interior. Inner organs are often presented as a subject of horror or, perhaps, clinical interest. But organs are as beautiful as the contours of our exteriors. I depict components of the digestive, circulatory, and muscular systems using organic materials such as felt and needlepoint. These media emphasize the delicacy and fragility of inner organs. They transform those parts that we least like to see into objects of exquisite and gentle intrigue. Handmade felt and needlepoint have been denigrated as craft media, rather than media of fine art. I reclaim these marginalized media by using them to depict things that have traditionally been displayed in medical academies rather than ladies' dressing rooms. The soft textures and delicate patterns serve to redefine body parts as objects of art, which can be viewed without repulsion by those who have been shielded from them. Media and subject matter take on new meaning when taken from their usual context and brought together. Rather than clashing in an uncomfortable tension, the soft materials coalesce with the body's interiors and give rise to forms that are approachable and even inviting.