I have loved museums since childhood as places of fascination and inspiring of human potential, so being invited to work as sculptor-in-residence at the Museum of London for eight months last year was both a challenge and the fulfilment of a great personal interest.

My work as a figurative sculptor has been driven by the mystery in the essential nature of other people. Being at the museum provided a tremendous opportunity for me to examine this theme further, speculating about and imagining the individual lives and identities of the visitors strolling the museum's corridors.

My chosen material is clay - the most basic of materials - yet, for me, also the most expressive and symbolic. To bring clay to life, I concentrate on movement, spontaneity and fleeting impressions, imposing these on the clay to convey such seemingly intangible qualities as character and inner vitality.

Sculpting at the museum held many challenges. I was forced to work rapidly on lightening fast sketches to keep pace with the momentum of the visitors' progress around the museum, which itself descends in a chronological spiral and to develop strategies for being as unobtrusive as possible.