Member Highlight: Diana Scheer

We spend a lot of time around works-in-progress at the studio.

Things wrapped in plastic. Half-finished ideas. Pieces that are still figuring themselves out.

So it’s always interesting hearing the story behind a finished work, especially one that feels this layered.

Diana Scheer’s recent sculptural piece began long before clay ever entered the picture.

This piece feels like it carries a lot of history behind it. Had you been thinking about it for a while?

Definitely.

"I started conceiving the idea for this piece over a year ago. From the get-go, this felt like a fluid, inherently creative, unassuming endeavour."

For months, Diana kept returning to it through sketching and visual exploration.

"I had been sketching it and further familiarizing myself with what I was creating, and the metaphors that were being traced with or without my express intention."

What’s interesting is that she wasn’t even sure it would become a finished piece.

"I don't know that I necessarily intended on ever materializing it - it was honestly more of a visual exploration than anything else."

And honestly? That feels familiar. Not every idea starts with a clear plan. Sometimes they just linger until the timing feels right.

So… what changed?

A deadline. And perhaps a little bit of creative pressure.

"When the member's competition came about, and the theme was announced, I immediately thought of it as an opportunity to make it happen. It might be the ADHD, but nothing quite does it for me like a good, old deadline."

A very relatable studio confession. With a few months to prepare, the project slowly shifted from idea to object.

"After many test tiles, measurements and further planning, I began to love what it was shaping up to be."

How did the piece come together physically?

Like many sculptural works, it started with structure.

"I started by coiling the base from a flat slab, flipping it, and then attaching a new concave-shaped slab on top, which the character living inside the uterus would take as a seat.The dome was entirely coil-built and later carved as the clay firmed up."

And then came the snails. Which, if you’ve seen the piece, are hard to forget.

We have to ask… why snails?

The answer is wonderfully specific. 

"I chose snails for a very specific, weird reason. I was once told that as a toddler, around 4 or 5 years old, my mom used to wait until nobody was around, only to pluck snails from the garden and eat them!"

Some memories stick with us in strange ways.

"That imagery was always very striking for me, and I guess it was only a matter of time before it made its way into one of my pieces."

And from there, the symbolism expanded.

"The snails became a symbol to indicate a troubled bond between mother and daughter."

The symbolism feels layered, almost contradictory at times. Was that intentional?

Very much so.

"Nothing short of fascinated by the grotesque nature of it, I soon found myself drawing parallels to the myth of Saturn devouring his children so they would never overthrow him."

Diana became interested in shifting how the snails were understood.

"I was particularly interested in sculpting and placing them in a way to signify threat and demise, when usually they are seen as harmless, defenceless creatures."

That tension became central.

"The snails can be interpreted both as parasites to the mother, and as lurking predators to the tiny person living inside."

And maybe that’s part of what makes the work stay with you.

It doesn’t rush toward one neat interpretation. It sits in complexity a little longer.

Which feels fitting. Because sometimes the most compelling work starts exactly the way this one did, as an idea that quietly refuses to leave you alone.