...the museum closes, so I ask Eva to wait while I go back in.

The mask museum in Zacatecas in Mexico has around 10 000 masks in its collections. Though some 3 000 are displayed magnificently, I rush by them all on my way back through the meandering halls.

The masks grimace, smile and laugh. They sneer at me. The zombies chatter with their empty mandibles, snakes rattle, crocodiles gape.

And so I find the small clay figures again. Conquistadors modelled in one piece as the aborigines saw them – rider and horse in one, a monstrous war machine.

As I rush to sketch them I’m not copying, I’m interpreting. Once back with the wonderful Eva in the lovely museum garden, I’m surprised as I flip in my sketchbook. Before me I see the sculpture group I will build up and cast in bronze during the year to come.

Three Lost Conquistadors Meet Maya.