SIMONE BODMER-TURNER’S YEAR WITHOUT A KILN WAS A YEAR OF GROWTH AND EXPLORATION

Art, Culture, United States
Interview by Ana Velasco
Photography by Marco Galloway & William Jess Laird

A Year without A Kiln is on view at Emma Scully Gallery in NYC
from May 2 – June 22, 2024

Photo by Marco Galloway 

They say home is where the heart is, and for artist Simone Bodmer-Turner, uprooting her life from New York to Massachusetts turned into an exploration process of what this transition meant for her home and her work. Best known for her beautiful sculptural clay pieces, the move meant access to a kiln was suddenly not easy, which forced Simone into the creative challenge of exploring different materials to work with, including wood and bronze. What ensued was a developed practice of collaboration with craftspeople local to her new home, opening new possibilities of creation. The new collection is aptly titled “A Year Without a Kiln,” which masterfully shows an evolution of Simone’s style, all while keeping the idea of home at the center of its thesis. Ahead of the show’s opening at Emma Scully Gallery in New York, we talked to Simone about the creative freedom of being challenged to work in a different way, as well as what makes a house a home, and how those two things came together for this new collection.

Photo by Marco Galloway 
Photo by William Jess Laird

Ana Velasco: What does home mean to you? How has that been shaped with this transition from New York to Massachusetts?

Simone Bodmer-Turner: Home is a place of grounding, caring for oneself, and taking care of the community. It should first be a place where you feel connected with yourself, your purpose, and (ideally) the earth, and the more you can open your doors and have a place to host and feed people, the better. 

In New York, my home was a sanctuary from the rest of the world. You’d come inside and feel safe at the end of the day. Here, I feel more expansive in this space rather than reclusive. The house is very much part of the land, and the land part of existence here.

It should first be a place where you feel connected with yourself, your purpose, and (ideally) the earth, and the more you can open your doors and have a place to host and feed people, the better.

– Simone Bodmer-Turner

AV: What was the inspiration for this show? 

SBT: Making a home of my own in a place I imagine growing into for a lifetime. A New England sensibility, and a history and local tradition of craftsmanship.

AV: How did you decide to create work in a different medium?

SBT: I didn’t really have a choice. I constantly crave to make and express myself, but this past year I didn’t have access to my usual tools and materials that I turn to when I’m feeling inspired or want to work out an idea or shape. I had long been wanting to make more highly functional furniture in woods and metals, and this void of my usual way of working finally gave me the opportunity to explore those materials. Being in this place in life also meant that for the first time I was really designing for myself, so designing for this space and the functional needs I have definitely influenced the shapes and the work.

 

Photo by William Jess Laird
Photo by William Jess Laird

AV: How was straying from your usual material freeing? How was it challenging?

SBT: The sturdiness and endurance (bronze) and lightness (wood) of working in these two materials meant a whole new world of shape was available to me. All of the lighting done in bronze could never be made in ceramic, it would break in a second at its more sinewy areas. Same with the wood and lacquered tables, the thinness of the top and lighter profile of the legs would be very challenging in ceramic. My ceramic furniture and lighting has often been called “monolithic” and that’s partially out of necessity of structure. The shift in materials allowed for shapes that were much more functional and movable in a domestic space

Photo by William Jess Laird
Photo by William Jess Laird

My ceramic furniture and lighting has often been called “monolithic” and that’s partially out of necessity of structure. The shift in materials allowed for shapes that were much more functional and movable in a domestic space.

– Simone Bodmer-Turner

AV: How would you describe this work, on a material level? On an emotional level?

SBT: The work, though a departure from ceramic, is a continuation of an exploration of materials that are both ancient and natural, like ceramic is. I’m not interested in using new and synthetic materials. They are lacking to me, though many designers have used them to great expression and interest. Materials with rich history are those that I’m drawn to, and if they have a sense of a specific place like local wild clay, or the locally milled timber used in these tables, they hold more impact for me. This is the material foundation I’m interested in designing and making from.

AV: You’ve worked on interiors and furniture before, which are components of what makes a home. How did this take that work further, or in a different direction?

SBT: The functional work I made before was in a more direct relationship to my sculptural ceramic work. The process was essentially “what if a sculpture had a flat top so that it was a table” or “what if we hid lighting between two sculptural pieces and light could flood out of the cavity of the top shape”. This process began with the functional piece, a light that cast this warm, elegant glow, how would I make a foot that both referenced how iron and bronze tripod, clawed foot candle stands and then, with the dawn of electricity, standing lamps had been made for centuries, and make it my own language. Or a table that I wanted a certain height to easily place a drink from the couch without having to get up or lean down, and which had some of the language of the New England countryside in it, but again, had bits of my sculptural language in it’s feet, and got to explore putting another ancient material I love for it’s gloss and refinement – urushi lacquer – onto what would otherwise be a very humble table. 

Photo by Marco Galloway 
Photo by Marco Galloway 

“Materials with rich history are those that I’m drawn to, and if they have a sense of a specific place like local wild clay, or the locally milled timber used in these tables, they hold more impact for me.”

– Simone Bodmer-Turner

 

AV: This show is described as coming from a place of “immense transition and creative incubation.” Can you explain what both those things were like for you? How did this incubation lead to a creative birth?

SBT: A year ago when I gave up my studio in New York and moved full time to Massachusetts my partner and I both had so many questions about how we would make it work professionally and financially. There was plenty of space that could turn into a studio, but every option needed a lot of attention and renovation that we’re still very much at the beginning of. A lot of my creative time was actually spent not physically making work, but more reflecting on the work I had made and the work I wanted to make and was excited to make, and most interestingly, (I can say this now in retrospect) the work I wanted to make but was scared to make. I first allowed myself to make something I thought no one would understand as my work: paintings. Since I started spending time at the house I had this crazy urge to start painting again, and in a way that was almost assemblage-meets-land art, by creating a textured canvas with plant material I was cutting back from the land at the end of their life cycles. Getting that out of my system was cathartic, and when it didn’t seem to confuse anyone (at least anyone that would say it to my face), and instead made a lot of sense in conversation with my body of work, I kind of lost my fear around making work that people would understand to be my work/voice/language. So that was the bandaid I had to rip off, which was shown with Object & Thing last summer, and then the furniture flowed more confidently out of that place of simply making what I was called to, out of what was in front of me, for my own pleasure and use. 

Photo by William Jess Laird
Photo by Marco Galloway 

AV: The show is called “A Year Without a Kiln.” In the absence of a kiln, what was the year comprised of?

SBT: A lot of conversations that led to a growing knowledge of the craft community in our immediate area. Many visits to the foundry and community woodshop. Modeling shapes in our makeshift studio. Growing my own food, and expanding the flower garden. Long woods walks and end-of-day dips in the various streams, ponds, rivers that surround us. 

AV: What is your favorite piece from the show and why?

SBT: I’m not the best person to ask because my emotional connection to the pieces shifts over the course of the making. I’m completely devoted to a piece while I’m working on it, putting all of my energy into bringing it into existence. Once something is completed and I move on to works developed later in the show, I become more attached to them. But at the moment, the urushi lacquer tall side table is what I can’t stop thinking about. The surface is exquisite and I know how much work went into the polishing of it. Creating these tables was a bit of a pipe dream and I feel incredibly fortunate I found the right collaborators. The near tie would be the polished bronze bowl. It’s just so satisfying. And the vert de gris sconces just came in with their green patina, and now I’m re-infatuated with them even though they were the first pieces I designed in the show and they were on the back burner of my mind for a while. You see how it goes…

“I spend so much time thinking about how I want the house to be inhabited and enjoyed. What kind of activities or resting I want different spaces to offer to us, friends, and family. These objects came out of this ideating as well.”

– Simone Bodmer-Turner

AV: When we assemble a home we are not just taking on an aesthetic task, but there is also an exercise in facing nostalgia while building our notion of the future, and the lifestyle we are setting up to create this new iteration of self. How did you interpret this with the show?

SBT: Completely. I spend so much time thinking about how I want the house to be inhabited and enjoyed. What kind of activities or resting I want different spaces to offer to us, friends, and family. These objects came out of this ideating as well. Through my research of spaces as I thought about my own I realized that layering soft light sources and having many side tables and flat surfaces to rest a coffee, wine, or book make a room cozy and usable. That, and a fire in the hearth that the dog curls up in front of, and newcomers can warm their hands before settling in. If you can add some ceremony and interest to these creature comforts through the objects that are lighting a room, or you’re placing your wine on, or that are holding your burning logs, all the better. And hence these objects…

A Year without A Kiln is on view at Emma Scully Gallery in NYC from May 2 – June 22, 2024