In Northridge, California, a castle rose from stone, memory, and medieval longing. At its heart stands Aspasia—a monumental bronze dragon commissioned for a patron whose childhood imagination was shaped by ancient legends.

With a wingspan of twenty feet, Aspasia took two years to travel from vision to bronze. Even her making carried the violence of myth: while wax scales were being applied, a spark ignited and the dragon briefly came alive in flame. She was formed through fire, persistence, and the refusal to abandon an impossible vision.

Her name honors Aspasia of Miletus, the philosopher and scholar whose intelligence left an enduring mark on Athenian life. That same strength lives in the dragon’s metallic sinews, individually sculpted scales, and watchful presence.

For the castle, I also created sixteen life-size drawings exploring dragons, erotic myth, and monsters—images that extend Aspasia’s world beyond bronze and into the architecture surrounding her.

Dragons live where imagination catches fire. Aspasia is the guardian of that threshold.