Nature speaks and art transforms

🌿 My creative process: when nature speaks and art transforms

Every piece I create is born from an encounter. A moment when nature, with its silent and profound language, reveals something to me that deserves to be heard. I am an artist and furniture designer, but above all, I am a mediator between the inner life of materials and the form they wish to take when they return to the world as art.

My work always starts from an essential principle: nothing is truly finished when it ceases to serve its original purpose. Roots, eroded wood, fallen branches, elements that many consider waste, are treasures to me. They are fragments of history that, having completed their life cycle in nature, are ready to begin another through my hands.

1. The search: listening before creating

Collecting materials is one of the most sacred moments in my process. I don't look for perfect pieces; I look for pieces with soul. Those that show scars, knots, impossible curves, textures that tell a story. I stop to observe them and try to understand their energy, their natural form, their message.

It is an intimate dialogue. Sometimes the piece asks me for prominence; other times, subtlety. The important thing for me is not to impose. I believe that nature has already done the hardest part: creating something unrepeatable.

2. Shaping: combining technique, intuition and respect

In the workshop, the most technical phase of my process begins. I use carpentry tools, eco-friendly resins, natural pigments and different stabilisation and preservation methods.

But although it may seem like an environment of precision and strength, my process is deeply sensitive. I work slowly, observing how the resin moves, how the pigment breathes within it, how the edges of the wood interact with the colours.

I am interested in creating spaces where both worlds—the natural and the intervened—coexist without losing their identity. I do not seek to cover or conceal, but rather to reveal.

3. Resin: where transformation occurs

For me, resin is a tool for healing. Its transparency and fluidity allow me to encapsulate moments, honour imperfections, and construct visual landscapes that invite contemplation.

Through resin, materials are reborn. What was broken is unified. What seemed like an ending becomes a beginning. And as that transformation occurs, it also occurs in me: I learn, I let go, I renew.

4. The finish: when the piece tells its own story

After sanding, polishing and final touches, the moment arrives when the work takes on a life of its own. I look at it, touch it, listen to it. Each piece tells me about its origin, but also about my own creative journey.

It is a reminder that beauty lies not in perfection, but in the process. In the story that has been encapsulated, in the balance between the wild and the constructed, in the respect for the material that was once a root, bark, branch or seed.

5. The purpose: art as a bridge and healing

My work is not just design or art. It is an act of connection. I firmly believe in the power of art to transform spaces and emotions, to bring calm, introspection and natural beauty to our surroundings.

Each piece has a purpose: to remind us that nature is not a resource, but a teacher. That what we take for granted can still be reborn. That everything has an essence that deserves to be honoured.

Thank you for reading,

With love;

Liliana Castillo.