Media and materials During the 1980s through 2009, Hodgson often reconstituted building materials (shingles, vinyl roofing, etc.), in addition to natural materials such a wooden stumps, twigs, and reeds. These are combined to address the "conversion of natural elements into ones that will destroy the world as we know it," as in the juxtaposition of dying trees laden with industrial steel pipes and other human-made material. The trunk was still rooted and alive, which provided extra challenges in the work, but was characteristic of her interest in organic forms and natural forces. She acknowledged that the trunk was impermanent, and certainly subject to change through the passage of time, but rejected the idea that art must be permanent.
Shingle sculptures ''River's Revenge
(2004) was part of the Sculpture In & By the River'' exhibition curated by Ann Jon on the banks of the
Housatonic River in Massachusetts on the grounds of the
Norman Rockwell Museum. The exhibition drew attention to the endangered river, historically and environmentally; thus, Hodgson's work was a natural fit, with her interest in the history of the region and environmental issues. Hodgson created a "snaking, writhing form made of New England house shingles, a testimony to the destructive power of floods," of which the Housatonic has a long history. She initially used shingles as bases for sculptures but became "interested in them for their own qualities." It portrays a
tidal bore, in which the incoming tide forms waves that travel up a river or inlet against the current. Her earliest undulating shingle sculpture,
Surge (2003), fabricated originally for a World Heritage site at the Schokland Museum, Ens, NL, was later among the works in the Flux Art Fair (2016), in which art was positioned in Marcus Garvey Park in
Harlem, NYC.
Recent work More recent work,
Pipelines and Power Stations (2013), concerns the destruction of the natural environment, specifically caused by
hydraulic fracturing, through a series of pump-like forms made of twisting welded pipes. ==Awards and honors==