Bridgit Day - Oct 26'
Bridgit Day ‘Somatic Resonance’ Q&A
1. Could you describe the journey that led you to ceramics? Have you always worked with it, or did you have any previous creative practice?
I’ve always loved art and craft in some form or another, creating and making as a child and later undertaking a Fine Art Degree at Elam, Auckland University. At the time I went through Elam there wasn’t any ceramics. My approach at art school, rather than to become proficient in a particular medium was to experiment with as many different materials as I could, such as bronze casting, glass slumping, timber and brass. My work was always influenced by nature and a desire to connect people with nature.
After art school I went on to do a Postgraduate Degree in Landscape Architecture. I had the idea that ‘art’ should be all around us and not just in an art gallery. After working as a Landscape Architect for over 22 years in multidisciplinary companies I wanted to return to something more tangible, making something directly with my hands.
At a time in my life when I needed it most a good friend signed me up to several series of ceramics night classes. And then I was hooked. This led me to undertaking a Diploma in Ceramic Arts, distance learning, through Otago Polytechnic.
2. Your sculptural vessels carry a strong sense of your presence, reflecting your body; memories and experiences. When bought together, they form a beautiful almost landscape-like composition. You’ve mentioned that you often work on two or three pieces at a time, with some large forms taking close to a year to complete. Life naturally has its ups and downs, so how do you stay connected to yourself throughout this process? Is there a particular way you work with clay to transform your intuition and feelings into form?
I feel that it is the slow process that helps with this. In my studio, a large old shed, that is when everything quiets and falls away. It is being slow and quiet that allows the space to connect with myself. It’s about letting things be and letting things become. I also live with the pieces with large gaps of time between each phase; the building, the drying, the first firing, the colour and the last firing.
3. Working on such a large scale must come with its challenges, especially when things don’t go as planned in the kiln. When a piece cracks or a work fails, how do you navigate those moments? Do you take breaks from making, and is there anything that helps you find your way back to the work?
Ceramics is always teaching us to let go, to appreciate that there is so little that we can control and that attachment is a difficult path. It’s never fun when something you have worked on for weeks and weeks, or months, fails or has an accident. I think you have to feel it; be sad, be mad, share with friends, be reminded you’re not the only one and then you carry on. It never stops the disappointment, maybe somehow we make friends with it, I’m not sure – I think that one will be a life-learning.
4. You have been featuring those cracks into some of your distinguished art forms, you create those beautifully, the scene of wabi-sabi, have you read any books around that philosophical practice? Which books do you recommend?
Along time ago I was reading books on Zen Buddhism and Chinese Taoism (Daoism). If I were to recommend a book it would be Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. I am also inspired by The Marginalian (ex Brain Pickings), a digital publication started in 2006 by Maria Popova.
5. What are your favourite things about your workspace? Is there a particular object, view, or part of your daily routine that inspires you or makes you feel most at home there?
It’s a big old tin shed surrounded by very large Totara and Karaka trees. It’s probably the trees that made me fall for this place. Their age, size, endurance and serenity; even with the branches that they regularly drop. If it’s cold and wet outside I light a fire, if it’s beautiful and sunny I roll up the garage door. Once a large Kererū flew in and landed on the horizontal light above my head, perhaps just to give me a fright.
6. You’ve been living up north for just over four years now. Have you found a local community of ceramic artists or other creative’s who inspire you? How has living there influenced your practice?
I’m still closely connected with my Waiheke and Auckland friends and have been lucky to make special friends here too. The people, who get you, accept you for you, those we spend time with sharing our life experiences they are the people who inspire me and keep me motivated in my art making.
7. You’ve been considering further study overseas, including the possibility of completing a Master’s Degree. What would you most like to explore or learn through that experience, and what are you hoping it might bring to your artistic practice?
It’s not something specific thing, it’s about being part of a creative community, a multidisciplinary community, a learning environment. The time and space dedicated to exploring and experimenting learning through making. The starting point of my Masters would be what I have hinted at in my exhibition what I have termed Somatic Resonance but I also want to stay open to not knowing where that might lead be and that’s not a comfortable place for me. For my artistic practice I hope the experience will bring a depth, a maturity to my practice.
8. Do you have a hero or someone you deeply admire?
That’s a difficult one. There are so many amazing people out there with amazing experiences and ways of being in the world. There is a ceramicist that I have been following for a long time who I would be so excited to meet and that’s Kristina Riska, a Finnish ceramic artist who hand builds large-scale ceramic sculptures.
9. Looking ahead, are there any challenges you’d love to take on, projects you dream of creating, or directions you’re excited to explore in the future? Is there a particular dream project you hope to realise one day?
One day I’d love the opportunity to be able to make and fire large scale works, by large scale I mean as tall as or taller than myself.
Thank you Bridgit, enjoyed reading this!
Interviewed by Yuka O'Shannessy, Public Record - Oct 26'
