Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Occupation: Sculptor.
Instagram: @simonebodmerturner
Hometown: Berkeley, CA, and Manchester, MA.
Studio location: Brooklyn.
Describe what you make: I make sculpture that slips between the realms of biomorphism and surrealism, currently with an intense focus on form (rather than surface, which will be next).
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: The Credenza I made for Matter Projects last year introduced me to connecting multiple fired shapes after they came out of the kiln to create a different effect and size than I would’ve been able to in one firing. The technique was initially used to achieve scale, but I then began using this puzzle-piece mentality to connect shapes that wouldn’t have been able to support themselves through a firing, as seen in Cloud Perch (2021), Vice Caress (2022), and some sculptures I worked on this summer, Calla Lily (2022) and Joust (2022). The puzzle-piece technique has set me on a trajectory of shape-connecting that I wouldn’t have discovered unless I was attempting massive scale.
Describe the problem your work solves: I like to challenge the viewer’s expectations of ceramic as a material, either by its seeming functionality or its precarious-looking balance and weightlessness, though the pieces are indeed functional and stable.
Describe the project you are working on now: I am about to tackle my largest site-specific interior installation, and also go into a period of material study this winter to expand my material understanding and application in my freestanding sculptural work.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: I just finished my largest freestanding piece to date, which is an eight-foot-tall, six-foot-wide mirror for Emma Scully Gallery’s booth at Design Miami.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: Objects and materials of inspiration.
What you do when you’re not working: I do a lot of walking, all over the city when I’m there, or in the fields and woods when I’m in the countryside. Mostly with my dog, Mort. Cook for friends, or meet them out for openings and a bite. Been trying to carve out more restorative alone time to read, write, run, and do yoga.
Sources of creative envy: The power of nature when out of an expected context seen in Nobuo Sekine’s body of work, Toyin Ojih Odutola’s storytelling and world-building as a companion for her visual works, Joan Miró for the ability to have such diversity in material but a clear through-line, Donald Judd’s expanse of space and funding to play within said space at his own pace…
The distraction you want to eliminate: I know everyone’s said it, but social media.
Concrete or marble? Concrete.
High-rise or townhouse? Farmhouse.
Remember or forget? Both.
Aliens or ghosts? Some days neither, some days both.
Dark or light? Light.
