I have had the pleasure to know and work with artist Bridget Parris. She is a talented artist who works in many mediums. Her projects have been realized in partnership with a variety of manufacturers, in a wide range of materials including glass, metal, ceramics, wood, and resin. Recently holding the position of Home Hard goods Designer for Anthropologie Stores her work for Anthropologie has been featured in Oprah’s O Home, Domino, In-Style Home, Timeout New York, and Real Simple Magazines. Her extensive experience working with the materials and processes of fabrication are directly applicable to projects in many realms from Tabletop and Lighting to Furniture, Interior Design, Apparel and Large-Scale Public Art Projects. Commissioned by the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts, she has completed two highly publicized public art projects to date.

We caught up a few weeks ago and I was particularly fascinated by her works in porcelain since that is my passion. This past Spring/Summer, Bridget completed a very interesting residency beginning the first week in May and ending the first week in September at the Museum of Arts& Design, also known as MAD.

The main focus of the residency was sharing her work and the process of it’s creation with the general public looking on. She worked in the Museum studio every Sunday, sharing her work and offering an up close and personal understanding of how objects are created from start to finish.

Her primary project was a floor lamp that she had designed and used as an opportunity to demonstrate the process of plaster mold making and slip casting, a method used for mass produced ceramics. This involved model making, which was done in earthenware clay, and in oil based clay for various sections, making plaster molds from the models, and then casting with porcelain slip in the plaster molds, and finally firing the clay.

She also made a few small hand built shell shaped dishes.

Her inspiration for her design work came from the 18th century French Decorative Arts. In conducting research for her MAD residency, she focused on the idea that producing fantastic design and employing highly skilled artisans to produce need not be considered financially unreasonable as an approach for a business to take. She learned that the most elaborate porcelains that were designed and created at the Meissen manufactory during the 18th century were made and given as diplomatic gifts. The production of these fantastical pieces was paid for by the profits that were gained from the sales of the factory’s commercial work, and depended upon the steady income of these commercial interests to achieve their level of brilliance. The factory did not operate at any sort of financial loss, and gained positive “marketing” from the gifts they chose to make and give away. (This information comes from the publication: Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts ca. 1710-63 edited by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger and published by Yale University Press, a volume that was ever present with her in the museum studios). She sees this as an important historical precedent to keep at the forefront of our minds during this current time of economic uncertainty, and chooses to follow this practice in her own work. Thus she views her hand built sculptural porcelains as having been supported by her equally important commercial work, products designed for Anthropologie stores, Two’s Company, and Lenox.

I wasn’t only interested in seeing Bridget’s amazing works of art for MAD but in learning that she recognized two of the key points that face the TableTop & Decorative Arts field today. First, it is important to educate the public about the value of these works of art as she did at the museum, showing the techniques of production. It’s one thing to see an item on a shelf, but to see a product start from an idea and then blossom into a finished piece, offers a whole new level of appreciation, including an understanding of the amount of time and the level of skill that goes into producing each piece. Secondly, manufactories can make expensive works of art & turn a profit at the same time. There was a very careful and successful balance struck at the Meissen manufactory that could be repeated in business practices today. It would seem that in the contemporary market suppliers are often torn between producing high end art pieces and making a profit instead of pursuing both paths concurrently. Bridget and I discussed the idea that, much the way fashion designers support the overhead of their couture collections with ready-to-wear and licensing, the tabletop market could produce art pieces that are supported by the financial gains made in mass-marketed lines to bring new excitement into the industry.

Bridget is currently working in the industry as a consultant. She also teaches Product Design and Drawing at Parson’s The New School for Design. She has taught in programs at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, The Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Arts and Design, and the Fashion Institute of Technology. She continues to make one-of-a-kind porcelain pieces.