Sculpting Breath Into Clay

There’s a moment in every piece when it starts to shift, from form to presence, from effort to essence. Yesterday in Joel’s studio, that shift began.

I spent the session refining the stallion’s head, with intense focus on the nose and mouth. It’s always astonishing how much emotion and energy live in those small details—the softness of a nostril, the tension at the corner of the mouth, the gentle curve where flesh meets air. The more I worked, the more he emerged. Not just a shape, but a being. It’s becoming real. He’s coming alive.

His head will take two sessions to complete as there is so much fine, minute detail in every part of the face. Once that’s done, I’ll scan the entire piece again, checking for symmetry throught, then back to the neck, softening and refining the shapes along the muscles so the energy flows from the ground through to the tip of the nose. After that, I will move on to the front leg, another threshold and another anchoring. I can already feel how the weight of it will ground him, the way a horse’s leg carries both strength and grace with every step.

At home, Forged From Failure—the broken head—rests in the studio, held gently in the new stand Jim and I built together. The welded horseshoe frame feels like an extension of the piece itself, born of the same spirit. Each shoe was once worn by a real horse, shaped and nailed by the same farrier who’s cared for our own horses for years. Some still bear their nails, others with borium welds for traction on winter ice, and many with rolled toes for smooth breakover of the hoof as the horse moves forward, pushing off from the toe. That base, like the sculpture it cradles, holds story, memory, and the resilience of transformation.

Both heads, one rising and one reborn, are part of this unfolding journey. Each speaks in its own way. One says, “I am becoming.” The other whispers, “I endured.”

And through them both, I keep listening.