CLEARWATER, Fla. —Susanne Ruseler is bending sand to her artistic will.

What You Need To Know

She’s spraying a mound of it down with water.

“Otherwise, the sand is all fluffy really and it doesn’t stick together,” she explained.

Then she can pack it — pound it into shape with a trowel.

Now it’s ready to sculpt for the Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival on Clearwater Beach.

Ruseler is working on her part of the “A Blast from the Past” theme.

“This part of the sculpture is about the moon landing,” Ruseler explained.

She is just standing behind a pretty good huge, rounded mound, with a cylinder of sand a couple of feet high sticking out of it.

Ruseler is from the Netherlands — a biologist turned sand sculptor.

And astronaut Neil Armstrong — is somewhere in that packed cylinder of sand.

“So it’s gonna be a little figure I haven’t carved that yet. You can’t see it,” said Ruseler.

She’s got some reference photos, but she’s got to interpret them for the medium.

She can extend an arm too far without support, so hands need to be at the astronaut’s side.

“I have to figure it out a little bit and I want to do the footstep,” said Ruseler, referring to an iconic photo of a footstep left on the moon from an astronaut’s boot.

It was her first steps — turning her hobby in her profession — that changed her path in life.

“I meet my colleagues all over the world,” Ruseler said. “It’s really nice. You see, it’s like a little family. You travel around, you meet in Japan or in Italy.”

Or in love.

Her partner and husband is fellow sculptor Canadian David Ducharme.

“We live in our luggage,” Ducharme said, laughing, working on sand flowers.

These traveling artists tackle joint projects and solo trips — coordinating their schedules, committed to their art — and each other.

“Any conventional relationship is pretty challenging ‘cause there’s a lot of time away,” said Ducharme.

“We work together quite a lot. It goes generally very well,” Ruseler said, laughing, shaveling said. “It’s really nice to travel together and to work together, yeah.”

It’s one time building a relationship on a foundation of sand works.