In the heart of Pine Plains, sculptor Kirsten Westphal shapes wood with a skill honed over decades. Her tools carve curves that appear both primordial and futuristic — sinuous forms that suggest movement even in their stillness. The placement of one sculpture next to another creates an unspoken yet somehow audible conversation. Listening in, one gets the sense that their maker is an artist’s artist, driven by the calling to create.
Bathed in natural light from windows framing her backyard garden on Myrtle Avenue, Westphal’s workspace, a barn-turned-studio is a sanctuary — one she has built not just for art, but for the life that art has carried her through.
Westphal’s artistic journey began in Buffalo, where a magnet school for the arts nurtured her early instincts. Encouraged by parents who, though not professional artists themselves, saw creativity as vital, she went on to earn a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1989, followed by an MFA from Columbia University in 1991.
“In the late ’80s, it still felt like you could make it as an artist,” she said. “I thought I’d teach a few days a week and spend the rest of my time in the studio. But by the time I graduated, tenure-track jobs were scarce, and rents in the city were skyrocketing.”
She immersed herself in New York City’s art world nonetheless, creating large-scale installations — room-sized wooden structures assembled from painstakingly carved components. “I wanted to do something on the scale of Richard Serra, but not with steel — with wood,” she said. Her pieces, some requiring tens of thousands of hand-carved elements, appeared in galleries and group shows.
Then life shifted.
In 2001, shortly after moving to Jackson Heights with her late husband, Douglas Dibble — a painter and professor at Hunter College — their daughter, Wallace, was not yet two. Just as they were settling into their new life, tragedy struck.
“It was a hit-and-run accident,” she said. “It was intense. It was totally horrible. It was also a huge education. It definitely gave me a lot of appreciation for the things that I did have in my life.”
Widowed, with a young child, Westphal faced a stark new reality. “At that time, when we moved to Jackson Heights, I gave up my studio in Brooklyn,” she said. “So, my artwork, my studio, my woodworking tools was all in storage. I raised our daughter on my own and did artwork when she was asleep, in like the dining room or in sketchbooks, and, you know, stuff like that.”
Through grief and transition, art remained an anchor, though her ambitions shifted. “I was always a very serious artist, had an insane work ethic,” she said. “And then it kind of had much less import. I realized a lot of things didn’t really matter. I wanted to still do my work, but I wasn’t a competitive artist anymore.”
For years, Westphal channeled her creativity into volunteer work, leading art classes in her daughter’s school. “I spent a lot of time volunteering at school and doing art classes with kids there. So, I continued that kind of drive in that way for years.”
Years later, she met Nick Arauz, a creative director and photographer, through a youth soccer program in Williamsburg. “Nick was Wallace’s soccer coach,” she recalled. “And we kind of hit it off. He was a single father raising two kids on his own. I’d been widowed for eight years at that point.”
When they bought their home in Pine Plains in 2012, they were looking for more than just a house. They needed a space where their families could come together and where Westphal could finally bring her art supplies out of storage. In their backyard, they converted a dilapidated barn into a two-story studio, a shared creative space that would evolve alongside their partnership.
“Sharing a creative space with Kirsten is a constant source of inspiration,” Arauz said. “Of course, it’s a privilege just to spend so much time with someone I love, but the real benefit is in our creative dialogue — her point of view as an artist pushes me to see new perspectives in my own work for clients and brands that I work with.”
A month before the pandemic lockdown, Westphal closed her longtime studio in Queens, moving her entire practice upstate. “It had flooded twice,” she said. “I didn’t want the hassle anymore.” The timing was fortuitous.
“Literally a month after I moved everything up here, it was lockdown. Suddenly, I had all my things here. I wasn’t paying rent for a studio. And I could just… work.”
The move also coincided with a new chapter in their family life. By 2020, Westphal and Arauz’s children were young adults, attending school and embarking on their own careers. Wallace Dibble had followed in her mother’s artistic footsteps, studying painting at Rhode Island School of Design, while Arauz’s twin sons took creative paths of their own — Alex Arauz became a fashion photographer after graduating from Central St. Martins in London, and Ben Arauz, a full-time musician, embraced the raw energy of punk rock.
Westphal’s current work balances her affinity for natural materials with a playful exploration of form. Biomorphic wood carvings stand alongside assemblages of vintage irons — objects once used to shape fabric, now repurposed to shape meaning.
Her sculptures range from the intimate to the expansive, from small wooden spoons to intricate installations that evoke an organic, tactile sensibility. A birch-wood cloud, installed at the Cary Institute in Millbrook, bridges her love of nature with her sculptural practice, blending the physicality of her materials with a sense of weightlessness.
She is candid about the transience of art and the question of artistic legacy.
“I feel like I’m a happy, fun person. I love life, but I also feel we’re so insignificant. We’re just here for such a short time. And I think when I was a young artist, that I felt much more important than I feel now. Not that I was ever not playful in my art, but I was much more serious about it. And now, I just find that it brings me joy.”
What a lovely attitude to have about life and work! A story beautifully told.