Who Inspires You?
There are so many people that inspire me. My girls are my biggest inspiration. They keep the ideas flowing! I look at their drawings or listen to how they describe things and it helps me create a piece. I will often ask them what colors they like and use them in a piece. They have a great sense of color and spatial relationships. Several polymer clay artists, such as Patricia Graham, Jill Willich and Julie Sizemore have shown me that it doesn’t have to be ‘beautiful’. I tried for several years to make pretty sculpts, but they always came out looking too stiff. Sue Heaser has a gift for all things miniature. Then, there is the cane goddesses of the world, Donna Kato, Sara Shriver, Sandra McCaw who amaze me with what they can do with those little blocks of clay. Another person that has inspired me is Christi Friesen. She not only opened up my love for all things dragon, but made me realize I can combine my two loves - sculpting and beads. 
What Inspires You?
So many things! I love the magazines the kids get, because they have such great photography. Looking at what other artists are creating is a great inspiration as well. I won’t copy a piece, but I may take one element I like from one and combine it with something else. Sometimes, I will think of the silliest thing and see if I can make it out of clay, or see how small I can make something. Most of the time, they end up in failure, but it’s great fun anyway and I learn a lot from each piece. 
Where Do You Create?
At the moment, not anywhere. I had a knee replacement last month and am recuperating. If I’m just in the mood to create and don’t have a specific thing in mind, I will wander into the basement where I have a large table, a convection oven and goo gobs of embellishments and tools to play with. If I’m in a sculpting frame of mind and only need a couple of tools, I’ll work at the kitchen table on ceramic tiles that pop easily into the oven so I don’t have to move them once I’ve created them.
How long have you been working with polymer clay?
I started playing with clay in 2003. It started as an off-shoot from making pipe cleaner fairies that my oldest and I were creating. I bought a 30 pack sampler of Sculpey and then I was hooked. I took out EVERY polymer clay book out of the library and pored over each one. I have purchased many of those books, but am always looking to see what else is out there. In 2004, at a clay conference I found the world of bead weaving, so now I like to incorporate both mediums in my work. It’s nice to have two passions, so when one hits a block, I go on with the other one and don’t have to stop creating!
