The inspiration can be overwhelming sometimes.

I don't know if that makes any sense.

Sometimes I could be so overwhelmed by a desire to create something that it's like I need to take a break.

I need it to settle in.

I go for a session of wing foiling, I come back home and I can think clearer.

It almost cleanses me.

You know, any bad negative feeling, the wing foiling just breaks it apart.

My name is Natalie Placencia and I'm a sculptor.

It happens to me every time, whether it's a drawing, whether it's clay, whether it's bronze, it's like I'm faced with a soul and I have to acknowledge the fact that I'm attempting to do this.

It really truly is, I feel like, an interaction between the medium and myself.

And it blows my mind every time.

Every time I see that moment when the spirit is in that person, it's almost like I've been waiting for you and you've been been waiting for me .

The most basic human desire, I think, is to make a connection.

We're social beings so it happens.

I just have to be patient.

Sometimes it doesn't happen for months.

Fully dedicating all my efforts and my mind to my art, I really started taking myself seriously in 2013, which is when I left social work and I started going into my art.

I always try to lasso my ideas and concepts back to the idea of what is the viewer getting from this?

And so my figures will have some anguish, some sadness but the idea is the hope that you need to have to be able to get you through that hardship.

Whether it's human rights, whether it's domestic violence, whether it's immigration, we're all in that journey.

Right now, I'm currently working on a piece that has a female figure and a boat and a sail.

So it's very exciting.

It also is sight-specific.

She's gonna be very powerful.

I still can't get to where I want her hands, so the hands are gonna have a lot to say.

My deepest desire is to treat others with dignity.

And so I try to go that same route with my art pieces, whereas I want the viewer to feel compelled to sit with it, even if it's a difficult subject matter, but also I want the child to be able to relate to the dog like tobacco in tender way.

Every piece gets me so excited.

I think I'm like a little kid all over again 'cause it's like all these wonderful things are gonna happen and I get to watch it.