Roxanne Swentzell

"I tell a story because my art comes from me being a little child and not being able to speak...

When my mother was making pottery, I would take the clay and I started making these figures that were basically me, trying to show how I felt. Then I would show the little figurine to my mother. And that's how she would know how I felt.

"I found out really early that I could communicate things through sculpting. It wasn't like 'I'm making art' or 'I'm going to make a drawing'. It was pure communication.

"I love my clay that I buy, from a box. And it saves me a lot of time processing it. I think it's important to experience digging clay and mixing your own clay and I grew up doing that. My mother used to dig her own clay..."