While at Atelier, Dehner learned wax sculpting techniques from a fellow student and in 1955 gained enough confidence to pursue casting her wax sculptures in bronze. This shift from drawing and painting to sculpture marked not only a shift in primary medium but also an end to a period of particular psychological distress. Over the next twenty years her reputation as a sculptor would skyrocket and she would hold exhibitions at the prestigious Willard Gallery in 1957, 1959, 1960, 1963, 1970, and 1973.