Toti O'Brien, a native of Rome, now lives in Los Angeles with her son, Francesco. As a visual artist, she works primarily in painting, collage, soft sculpture and assemblage. O'Brien also writes, and creates performances of music, song and dance. Her work is strongly influenced by folk art, and folk music and dance. She has lived, worked, and taught in Europe, the US and Brazil.

Of the soft sculptures photographed for these pages, O'Brien says: "I've been making dolls since ever and for ever. Many of the dolls have a frame around them. The frame is important, as long as we (dolls) can play with it, get in, get out, across, over, under. The frame is a story. We (dolls) belong to it, but we don't stay still... we try to move it a little bit, give it a twist, make it dance..."