Artist Simone Bodmer-Turner Trades New York City for Rural Massachusetts, Expanding Her Creative Practice With Partner Scott MacDonough

"This past February, the artist finally fired back up the kilns—there's one installed in a barn on the property, roomy enough for her ceramic chairs and lamps, another small one in the basement, and two more in the production facility she set up in a former mill building nearby. From that new space she's been fine-tuning bowls, plates, cups, and candlesticks, all part of her first tableware collection, set to launch this winter."

"A child of Berkeley, California, she spent her early career working in restaurant kitchens, on farms, and at a start-up that connected local growers and bakers with city folk. "It felt important to reengage with what I was doing before," she says of this interplay between land and food. Meanwhile, she's taken up pruning, hoping to coax scraggly apple trees toward a distant future harvest. It's an exercise in patience and a window into her slow-burn creative drive."

She restarted kiln operations in February, operating a barn kiln for ceramic chairs and lamps, a small basement kiln, and two kilns in a production facility in a former mill. From the new space she is fine-tuning bowls, plates, cups, and candlesticks for a first tableware collection launching this winter. She aims for pieces between sturdy and elegant, slightly thinner with a more uniform glaze, combining wheel and hand-building techniques. Her background includes work in restaurant kitchens, farms, and a start-up connecting local growers and bakers. She prunes apple trees as a patient creative practice. The studio produces site-specific plaster installations, and MacDonough, an engineer with sculpture and photography experience, joined as director of interiors and provides structural and scale translation for her hand-formed maquettes.

Read at Architectural Digest