Primarily a self-taught ceramic artist, Amy Meya fell in love with clay when she was in middle school, and has been working in it ever since. "My favorite thing about being an artist is daydreaming all day long and getting dirty," she says.

Amy was inspired to create her ceramic bird tiles when she and her children planted giant sunflowers outside their dining room window. When the sunflowers grew tall, they attracted sparrows, cardinals and goldfinches.

Like a painting, each piece is created individually, the clay her canvas, the glaze her paint. As a painter must prepare the canvas, Amy must also prepare the slab of clay by adding texture.  Amy textures the tile with rolling pins that she makes out of clay, sea shells or other natural texture makers. The birds are created by pinching a hollow bird form and then closed by using large sea shells to form the wing feather texture and underbelly and back texture. The point of a spiral shell creates the bird's eye. "It is fascinating that the textures of a sea creature can emulate the textures of a sky creature," she says.