On September 23rd, we had the pleasure of meeting artist Brie Ruais in her NYC studio. During the meeting, Brie showed us her recently finished works, the inner workings of her studio, how she packages and sends her pieces to galleries, and source material from previous studies. Ruais also discussed with us how she came to work in her style, what her relationship to nature looks like, and how her studies of different environments evolve into her large ceramic pieces.
Brie mentioned how she sees the landscapes that she studies as maps, and how she tries to mimic similar man-made and naturally found grooves and patterns into her own work, and further exemplifies these ideas with color and the overall presentation of her work. By putting her full physical force while creating and describing her movements and the weight of the piece in the title, Brie is offering viewers an in depth look into her process, almost making the pieces feel performance-based. By working with clay on such an intimate level, she is able to explore her relationship to different environments, and she is finding new way to explore her medium of clay with previous studies.
I found it to be really encouraging when she spoke about her time in graduate school, and her response to one of my classmate’s questions about her artist direction and how she found it. Brie said it was difficult at first, and that there was a lot of self-doubt, but at the end of the day, she was fond of what she wanted to create and how she wanted to execute it, and so she did just that. Even though she did mention that she does lightly plan out the movements she wants to do for a piece, it’s all mainly verb based or not heavily descriptive, and her color choice when she glazes is decided on in the moment. I personally am a planner and I tend to only create or paint when I can see the final goal result before I start, but Brie reminded me that sometimes having a looser game plan and creating based on the moment can sometimes offer opportunities for growth, a positive change in style, and also just finding your preferences as an artist.
