March 22, 2024
Rae Wilson
Working With Impermanence
Hudson, NY
Interview by Sylvia Estes.
Photography by Em McCann Zauder.
SE: Can you tell me your name and what you do?
RW: My name is Rae Wilson and I am a ceramist and florist.
SE: How has your process evolved over time?
RW: I used to throw on the wheel, but as my practice evolved, I found more connection to handbuilding. Though I find wheel throwing to be meditative, I don’t love making concentric forms. Handbuilding allows me to go off on tangents. I often find my way pretty slowly towards my endeavors. In this way, a slow hand build is where I like to be. It feels organic and matches my natural pace of being.
SE: How much do you plan each piece as opposed to finding it along the way?
RW: I don’t generally do a whole lot of planning. I draw some things, but more as a method of capturing the essence of what I am making. Most of the time I imagine pieces, and that’s where those ideas stay until I touch clay.
Occasionally, when I don’t know where I’m going after starting a bigger form, I’ll draw different iterations of where the form could go.
SE: What part of the process do you find the most challenging?
RW: Glazing. I love glaze. I just don’t always set myself up with enough time to experiment, so I rely on the trusty old recipes I make. Not a bad thing… I just know that if I were to explore this huge part of the ceramic process more I could exponentially expand my horizons.
SE: What part of the process do you find the most rewarding?
RW: I love how my chosen mediums convey impermanence. I try to leave my attachment to outcome aside, though this can be easier said than done. I recently read in M.C. Richards’ book Centering that, ‘The birth of the new entails the death of the old, change; and yet the old does not literally die, it lives on, transformed.’ I find the reminder of impermanence to be extremely humbling. It’s rewarding to watch my work change form.
SE: Is there a place you return to when looking for creative inspiration?
RW: The ocean, always. The coastal landscape is where I grew up, and my family has a deep history surrounded by the ocean. It grounds and connects me when I feel lost.
SE: What words do you “live by”?
RW:Yoga has been a constant eb and flow in my life, sometimes more present than other times, but it’s always there.The specific sanskrit mantra/chant “Lokah Somastah Sukhino Bavantu” always exists in my head-space. It is one of the most popular yoga mantras for a reason. It is loosely translated (and my favorite way of understanding it), “May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life, in some way contribute to the happiness and freedom for all.”Although sometimes I falter, I try to always remind myself that everyone and everything deserves freedom and happiness… and sometimes, when I’m driving in my little '99 Toyota Tacoma, I pop on the Wildflowers CD by Tom Petty, it’s a good way to remember what’s important.
Rae Wilson
Rae Wilson is a multimedia artist whose fluid practice explores ceramics, florals and movement. Less interested in perfection, Rae is instead attentive to nurturing space for growth. Rae’s process is devotional. By creating ritualistic “alters” to the natural world, she is at once celebrating faded objects of time, while offering something new and tangible.
Rae lives and works in Hudson, NY.