In art and life, I think there is a lot of value in trying new things, even things that are pretty random.

I like to experience new mediums by taking some time and walking around art stores - local Boulder stores like Guiry’s and Two Hands Paperie are fun places to shop. Sometimes I try out new crafts with supplies found at Michaels too, like this oven-bake clay, Craftsmart.

I played with Sculpey clay a lot as a kid. I loved how, with Sculpey, I could make figurines of characters that I could never find at the store. I made these Jinjos out of Sculpey when I was about 12 or 13, because I loved Jinjos in the game Banjo Kazooie, and I never saw anything like a Jinjo figurine available in 1998, or even right now!

The Jinjos’ ears (antaennae?) are broken, they may have been too delicate to last from 1998 to 2022!

Playing with clay more recently, I also made this little Junimo from the game Stardew Valley:

I had a ton of fun doing this! Being a person who usually draws and paints, working with clay to make a 3D object was a good challenge for me. I struggled a bit to get the Junimo’s delicate antennae built, and the tiny stringlike arms and legs sized well.

The sea slug and the Junimo turned out to be great topics because they took a decent amount of noticing and attention to get on point. Animals or creatures that are common can also be hard to sculpt, like I think a dog or a horse would be really difficult to do! But I wanted to make something very random and very strange to get my brain going in new ways.

I still have a few more bricks of oven-bake clay in the studio. I’m not sure what I’ll make next, but if I am too into the computer or vastly abstract concepts, it helps me to have some clay to work with my hands again.