Known for her small, dreamscape, mixed-media boxes, Marcee Blackerby says that this year: “feels like a good one for changing directions and experimenting with size. In preparation for a show at Art Access in June, I am hard at work altering and otherwise making use of mannikins of various size. I’m attracted to the idea of women’s fashion used to suppress and control. But think of the Victorian era…the repression created sexual tension so that even the touch of a finger could send messages of passion and longing.  And what might be going on under those whale-bone stays and lace-up corsets? Could be little devils at play, cookies and candy . . . what does hidden desire look like? Seen on my worktable is ‘Runway General,’ this 6′ mannikin will wear the medals of designers at various places on her body. A smaller woman wearing a white cage for a skirt lets the viewer see she’d like to ‘monkey around.’  I’m also wrapping up my first novel, ‘The Feastgiver,’ a work of historical fiction about a Russian psychic.”