Finding the time to finish a large-scale project can be difficult. That's why sculptor Elizabeth Turk is coming to the Lux Art Institute for a one-month residency during which she will complete the last piece in her 21-piece "Collar" series.

"This work has been in progress for about two-and-a-half years, on and off," she said. "So it will be nice to have the isolation and intensity Lux provides to focus and finish."

Lux Art Institute offers artists a multiweek residency where they can exhibit finished pieces and create a work on-site while the public is invited to watch, ask questions and interact with the artist. Many past resident artists have created site-specific pieces for the Lux's permanent collection.

Turk's work has been exhibited at solo shows at the Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, N.C.; and at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara. Her pieces are featured in collections at the National Museum for Women in the Arts, in Washington, D.C., as well as the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College in Claremont. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards and residency programs, including the L'Oreal Art and Science Prize in 2001 for a collaboration with Kirara Kiwacha in Japan.

Her "Collar" works are a series of white marble pieces, often from solid, 400-pound blocks of Sivec and Carrara marble, which appear to be intricate lace or ribbons of undulating waves. The series began when she first graduated from art school. She wanted to enter a competition working in bronze, her preferred medium at the time. Then she saw the work of an established artist who also worked in that medium and knew she didn't want to be compared to that artist.

"Marble seemed to be the opposite kind of material ---- quiet and calm, yet it holds its own voice. I started roughing out the pieces in 2000 and 2001. The first handful are flat, more like lace. Then I started piercing through the material and they became three-dimensional and able to hold themselves together. Each piece takes a few years to complete, although I do overlap projects."

She wants to use these intricate pieces to draw in viewers who may be new to the art world.

"I wanted to provide an entry point for them," explained Turk, who divides her time between Newport Beach and New York City. "I wanted them to appear simple at first, but then it grows in layers. I called the series 'Collar' because it plays on the 20th century idea for a portrait bust. It shows how we're defined by patterns more than faces. It seems like a 21st century portrait in some way."

Each new work is more intricate than the one before it as she learns how in imbue each sculpture with a greater ability to hold together. The reason each work takes so long is that it requires great endurance and focus.

"The marble is so fragile, that if I lose focus, I can't do it," she said. "It takes so much out of me, with so many parts that fit together. That's why this one hasn't been completed yet."

The idea of working in front of an audience does make her a little nervous, but she plans to bring headphones.

"I often carve in a marble yard and there's always people moving around in there," she said. "I love showing people the process."

Elizabeth Turk in Residence

When: Opens Thursday and continues through Oct. 3; gallery hours, 1-5 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays
Where: Lux Art Institute, 1550 S. El Camino Real, Encinitas
Tickets: $10 for two visits
Info: (760) 436-6611
Web: www.luxartinstitute.org