HAMILTON, CANADA
Collection: EMMA SMITH
ARTIST STATEMENT
I come from a working-class family of five, the brick house I grew up in, a simple home with simple things inside. Boot scuffs on an old wooden floor, weathered paint where hundreds of fingerprints ran along the wall each day. A family recipe; the way my nose is just like my mother’s, and how my father’s stubbornness was not lost on me. It is these small parcels of time that I aim to explore and celebrate, using soft clay that shows process and touch. What better material to express the tenderness and resiliency of life than one which is equally malleable and solid. I fire my work in a wood burning kiln, decorated with stylized patterns from my day to day. The texture of fungi on a log, animal tracks in the snow, and the crises cross on the manhole cover at the end of my driveway are small intricacies that make up the world around me. They have made me too.
Emma Smith is a ceramic artist and creative thinker from Ontario, Canada. Growing up in the shadow of the Niagara escarpment, she aims to celebrate the significance of place, environment, and land, through her life philosophy and artistic practice. Exploring this theme largely through woodfired ceramics, her work is made to be experienced quietly, encouraging moments of contemplation and reflection. Outside of the clay studio, she enjoys storytelling through writing and film photography. She is also an active member of Hamilton Aerial Group, a grassroots aerial and stilt theatre company in Hamilton ON that produces narratives using puppetry, clowning, and circus arts. You can find her, her work, and her small homestead, in the rural hamlet of Jerseyville ON.
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