Meet the wonderful Meredith Bradley of City Sloth! Meredith and I met a while back through another Maker's event. I have loved seeing her style grow and change over time. (Dusty and I are lusky enough to own a few of her pieces. Love!) There's always something new and interesting to find at her booth. Come take a peek this Saturday at the Maker's Mash!
What do you make?
Porcelain wheel thrown, screenprinted functional ceramics
How did you get started making?
I first became interested in making in high school through the three dimensional AP art class where I was able to explore different mediums, techniques, and overall processes. At this time I was mainly creating mixed media figurative sculptures that had ceramic elements. Once in college, I landed at MudFire, community ceramic studio in Decatur, GA, where I currently work as a resident artist. Here, I have been able to explore functional wheel thrown forms, while incorporating other elements of design through screenprinting.
What does your average day look like?
My average day entails juggling a lot of different things - from working on my own pieces and forms, developing new screens and designs, learning marketing necessities for a small business, working on shift at MudFire or at my part-time marketing job at a local start-up, and everything in between.
What inspires you to keep making work?
Staying motivated and inspired to continue pushing out work is definitely hard to keep up consistently. I often turn to my studio mentors and fellow residents at MudFire to stay motivated - we’re each others accountability partners - and I think it’s important to have someone to bounce ideas off of and help you out during slow creative making times.
What is the hardest lesson you learned through your business/creative process?
Throughout learning how to run a ceramic business, I have found that patience and timing is something I run into too often to ignore. With ceramics, coordinating the timing for making attachments and screen printing the pieces is always a difficult task, especially since it is almost always inconsistent. It’s a hard lesson in ceramics, but with running a business as well. Learning everything necessary to run a business takes time, and a lot of patience.
What's the best part about making what you make?
I enjoy surrounding myself with objects reminiscent of the home which brings motivation to make pieces for others to enliven their personal spaces. Sharing this same comfort with someone else through my work is the best part about making.
What are you working on now?
I am constantly looking for new inspiration for my screenprints - right now, I am narrowing down on my forms and focusing on a new direction for my screenprints.
Can't wait to see! Keep in touch with Meredith on Instagram and on her site too! See you this weekend! :)