Janet Echelman

As a child, I always enjoyed building forts by stringing up bed sheets and clothes. I continue to be inspired by makeshift structures, including my own kids' forts and temporary architecture of all sorts.

My whole career I've been interested by the distinction between an emotional and an intellectual response to an artwork.

I recognize that it is through the engagement with my craft - by recognizing an idea and drawing it out, building physical models, collaborating with experts, constructing the sculptures at urban scale, and maintaining them through years of weather and interaction with the public - that a new art for cities has become real.

The spaces I want to be in are nurturing and soft and saturated with color. Our cities don't have enough of that, and as humans we need it.

In Portugal, my sculpture 'She Changes' refers to the town's fishing history, to the era of seafaring trade and discovery. The contemporary site is industrial, surrounded by red and white striped smokestacks, which is mirrored in the pattern of the sculpture.

I believe that public space should be intentional: it should be obvious that you belong.

When developing an idea, I remind myself not to start with compromise. I envision the ideal manifestation of the idea, as if I had no limits in resources, materials, or permission.

When ideas are young and vulnerable, criticism can be lethal.

The most powerful part of the art is experiential, yet it's the hardest to describe because it's nonverbal.

It's good for art to make us think, to give us a shared experience that creates a dialogue, makes us talk to each other, including strangers.

I believe people can have a profound experience by being surrounded by something beautiful - that's what I aim for. My sculpture is about the way you feel when you're standing under it and inside it. It's experiential art.

In Amsterdam, the river and canals have been central to city life for the last four centuries.