In her work, Rebecca Hutchinson investigates the many different facets of nature, its resilience and ability to thrive and survive despite impediments and boundaries. Talking about her practice, she states “my interest is in quality of craft, connections, structure, and conceptually to all physical parts to the whole. I build site-responsive sculptural works made from clay and recycled materials, like old clothing or industrial surplus. I hand build, slip trail, dip, layer, cut and construct with the surplus and handmade materials. Works are influenced by growth patterns, but do not replicate nature. Like an animal that uses the vernacular from place, I too up-cycle humble materials into exquisite sculptural forms.”
A Professor at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, Hutchinson has taught Undergraduate and Graduate Ceramics for the past twenty-one years. Her sculptural work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally in world renowned museums and galleries, and has been featured in over 80 publications. In addition, Hutchinson has lectured and taught at over 70 international and national venues and over 20 American University programs.
Hutchinson is currently living on her ranch in the Elkhorn Mountains at 5,000 ft elevation near Helena, Montana.
For more information, please see: www.rebeccahutchinson.com and on Instagram @rebeccahutchinsonstudio.
Rebecca Hutchinson, Double Bloom, 2017. Fired and unfired porcelain paper clay, handmade paper, organic material. Each 24”x24”x11’. Image courtesy of the artist.
First, and most importantly, how are you doing? How are you navigating the highs and lows?
I am doing fine. Working in the studio with all intentions on staying focused.
It's my experience that most artists engage with some level of self-isolation in their day to day art practice. Has this been your experience? And if so, have you found these innate rhythms to be helpful during this larger, world-wide experience of isolation?
Yes, I believe you can’t even make work until you can be quiet with yourself, pushing back the peripheral noise. That being said, there’s a lot of peripheral noise in the world; unrest, anxiety, etc. I’m fortunate to love being in the studio without traveling and the interference of having to go places. The staying home, staying in the studio, is wonderful.
It would be great if you could briefly talk us through your practice. Understanding it is integral to appreciating the multivalence of your work.
Work is based on observation of ecosystem dynamics and observations of human relationships. What I see in plant life with its ability to navigate, survive, etc., provides information for metaphor in the complexity and dynamics in humans. As ideas develop, I then go to drawing, and then from drawings into form. Form is developed with a combination of structure and fictitious botanical imagery that navigates around structure. Structure is made either from harvested willow near my property in Montana, or from building in clay, or in weaving large scale, hanging structural forms. Fictious botanical imagery is made with many, many parts, some from recycled garments and table linens pulped into handmade paper or mixed into clay, or a combination of the two.
Rebecca Hutchinson, Tranquil Bloom, 2016. Fired and unfired porcelain paper clay, handmade paper, organic material, pulped offline currency 1 million dollars. 12' x 17' x 13'. Image courtesy of the artist.
Has any of your imagery shifted in a reflection to what's currently happening? And why, or why not?
An overt interest in positivity, as seen in the ability to survive in the plant world, gives me optimism for human potential. Yes, imagery is shifting, maybe I can’t analyze it yet. I’ll be better able to do so in a few months.
Are you thinking differently? Coping differently? Inspired differently?
I am physically more stationary. I am more focused on the immediacy and rhythms in my day to day place. The ranch is my ecosystem.
What is bringing you solace, or even joy, in this moment?
Staying in one place and finding the ecosystem of my domestic space rich, full, and complete.
Rebecca Hutchinson, Midnight Bloom, 2019. Fired and unfired porcelain paper clay, handmade paper, organic material, concrete. Each 5ft-10ft height x 8"x8" -14”x14" depth. Image courtesy of the artist.
What research or writing are you doing that you find compelling?
Two things that have really gotten my attention:
1) Looking at cultural dynamics in groups of people and their innate skills for their survival.
2) I’m also studying the enneagram. I find it rich that the nine archetypal personalities have deep differences. This, ultimately, has a possible positive, synergistic, and wholistic ability for mutual respect despite differences.
Are you reading anything?
Multiple books on the enneagram.
Perlman Museum Installation, 2015. Fired and unfired porcelain paper clay, handmade paper, organic material. 99" x 96" x 14'4". Image courtesy of the artist.