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Erica Moody | Fine Craft Fellow | Maine Artist Fellowship

May 03, 2023

Erica Moody | Fine Craft Fellow

Erica Moody of Waldoboro sculpts unique serving wares. The craft evolved from wanting to make tools that create connection, and to focus that intersection with the spirituality in sharing food. Her utensil designs are inspired by a variety of antique serving styles, traditional metal craft techniques, as well as minimal design and fabrication learned from collaborations over the last 30 years with artists, architects, and designers. Erica’s process is to develop a conversation with the materials, mostly brass, copper, and steel - and create a purposeful simplicity with focused attention on human connection and haptic experience, enhanced by careful craftsmanship. Using refined and organic techniques in her craftmanship, areas of texture emerge and become a nuanced detail that documents the process while conveying the intimate sense of time, ritual, existence and connection of the maker, user, and object. Erica’s work transitioned to this phase when she moved to Maine in 2014, where she discovered inspiration and time in the spacious natural environment. “I was deeply influenced by the intimate relationship communities have with the sharing of food, from how it is grown, the care of the environment it is grown in, the families that grow it, and how we all embrace it in our cooking pots and on our tables. I feel a connection to my own family lineage and memories of their time as farmers and cooks in the rural South, with recipes, seeds, and cookware have been passed down through the generations.”

Artist Statement:

My current work sculpting serving wares evolved from wanting to create tools that create connection, and I wanted to focus that intersection with the spirituality in sharing food. My utensil designs are inspired by a variety of antique serving styles, traditional metal craft techniques, as well as minimal design and fabrication learned from my collaborations over the last 30 years with artists, architects, and designers I've worked with to engineer and fabricate their custom projects in furniture, sculpture, and unique hardware. My process is to develop a conversation with the materials, mostly brass, copper, and steel - and create a purposeful simplicity with focused attention on human connection & haptic experience, enhanced by careful craftsmanship. I use both refined and organic techniques, where areas of texture can emerge and become a nuanced detail that documents the process while conveying the intimate sense of time, ritual, existence and connection of the maker, user, and object.

My work transitioned to this phase upon my move to Maine in 2014, where I find inspiration and time in the spacious natural environment. I was deeply influenced by the intimate relationship communities have with the sharing of food, from how it is grown, the care of the environment it is grown in, the families that grow it, and how we all embrace it in our cooking pots and on our tables. I feel a connection to my own family lineage and memories of their time as farmers and cooks in the rural South, with recipes, seeds, and cookware have been passed down through the generations.

Award Statement:

Receiving this Maine Artist Fellowship award is like that of sailing into a beautiful calm cove after a long trek beating against the salty wind, guided by possible destinations marked up on a flat paper map, with the fickle weather and waves changing your course as you go, testing your navigation and seamanship skills. I see this cove as a welcome rest for a short while which allows me to regroup before the next exciting leg of my artistic journey. I have learned mostly on the job in my nearly 30 yr metal working career, and I look forward to using this award to assist in attending residencies and workshops to explore and expand ideas with new techniques in the craft of my utensil-making.