My muse is an interesting gal. She disappears for weeks at a time and when finally she shows up for work, she doesn’t hand over her creative secrets all at once. Yet, there are times when this serendipitous path is pure magic.

Le Corbeau et le Renard (The Fox and the Crow)

This piece started with an idea to pair a cool wine cork with a Bacchus fox. Thankfully an art history degree provides a wealth of mythological iconography to coax that muse out of hiding 🙂 From there, the piece evolved through a suggestion from my husband that I lean the fox up against a chicken. “Interesting,” my muse said, but as she and I started to sculpt, she veered off the idea of creating a chicken. The black clay called to her and the chicken evolved into a crow.

The real serendipity of it all appeared when my friend Bevin saw the piece on Instagram and bought it before I had even finished it. She said it reminded her of a poem she read in high school, Le Corbeau et le Renard (The Fox and the Crow). How perfect! I didn’t have this cautionary tale in mind when I started, but it totally works. Thank you muse.

Behind-the-scenes video of how I sculpted the fox: