What inspires an artist to create a particular craft sculpture series?

When people ask me what inspires my craft sculpture series, I usually laugh and say, “Honestly? A bit of everything.” But if I dig deeper, I can trace the spark back to a single moment. It was a rainy afternoon, and I was watching water droplets race down my studio window. Each drop seemed to have a mind of its own—some merged, some clung stubbornly to the glass. Right then, I thought: What if I could capture that delicate dance in clay?

That became the seed of my “Rain on the Window” series. Every sculpture is a frozen second of that motion: small figures of hands reaching out, or tiny abstract forms that look like they’re about to slide off the base. I don’t plan these pieces on paper. Instead, I sit with the clay and let my hands remember the feeling of that afternoon—the quiet, the rhythm of the rain, the way light softened everything outside.

Of course, not every series comes from a weather memory. Sometimes it’s a story a friend tells me, or a piece of driftwood I find on the beach. For my “Roots and Wings” series, I was inspired by a tree that grew sideways on a cliff, clinging to rocks while its branches reached toward the sky. I kept thinking about resilience—how we all try to hold on while also wanting to fly. So I sculpted figures with one foot planted in a textured, earthy base and the other stretching upward into smooth, airy shapes.

What drives me most is the act of transformation. I start with a formless lump of clay, and as I press, pinch, and smooth, something begins to breathe. The material talks back: if I push too fast, it cracks; if I’m patient, it softens and follows my vision. That conversation between my hands and the clay is where true inspiration lives—it’s raw, honest, and never exactly the same.

For each series, I ask myself one question: “What feeling do I want someone to hold when they look at this?” If the answer makes my chest tighten or my fingers itch to work, I know I’ve found the spark. Inspiration, for me, isn’t a lightning bolt. It’s a slow burn that starts with curiosity and ends in a quiet sense of wonder.