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Brooke Millecchia | Episode 202
While most of Brooke Millecchia’s work begins on the wheel, the majority of her time is spent altering the form and manipulating the surface with texture. She further works the surfaces by applying a bold, but warm color palate. Brooke allows her work to evolve while working in the studio. She has never kept a sketchbook.
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What is the key to having an interesting Instagram feed?
Spending the most time on your pictures. You have to work those pictures. I’m always looking at the feed to see if it looks good as a whole. You can definitely see the people who have taken the time to manage the pictures. And I don’t have any special abilities in the pictures. I just take the time to brighten them. Make them clearer. To make sure there’s nothing in the background that looks out of place. You have to stage them.
How do you stage your pieces?
I find a lot of surfaces that are appealing. I have a lot of handmade furniture. My grandfather was a furniture maker. And so a lot of the surfaces I use are his table tops. I have a lot of colored walls and if I can prop my piece on an angle of the table with the color in the back ground I will move my pots around until it looks right on the camera. I think sets of three or less. Less is more I think for finished pots.
How do you do your lighting?
The pieces that you would enter into a show, those I’ve happened to have in my house for the past fifteen years. A room that has three walls of windows. So I have no lighting in my pictures! Absolutely none. I have a gradient paper and I have it on one of my windows and drape it down onto a table. I just have to do it during the day and make sure all the window shades are open. So there’s no lights. And as far as the other pictures I do a lot of them by those windows. Natural lighting really.
Is there a time of day when natural lighting is best?
I usually do them at nine or so, but I’ve done them as late as four. Even in the winter, but I will have to brighten them.
How often do you need to post?
I think posting daily has worked for me, but I’ve lost some people because I post daily. You know. People are just like ‘Enough!’ Maybe if they don’t have a lot of people that they’re following and you show up constantly. But who knows why? But it seems to work for me and it hold me accountable to do it every day. So I think daily works if you want exposure.
Do you use anything that helps show you who followed and unfollowed you?
Well whenever I see my number…not that I continuously follow that number as far as followers go. I know when someone’s left. And I’m heartbroken!
If you could be a superstar for what would you be a superstar of?
If I could do like over again starting in middle school I would have gone into theater. At least into high school. I love plays and theater and musicals. I want to be up there. I never have done that before. So if I could have done it all over again I defiantly would have done it in high school.
This is the Pitcher Brooke gave me
Book
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
Clay and Glazes for the Potter by Daniel Rhodes
Contact
Instagram: @brookemillicchia_ceramics
It was great “getting to know you” Brooke. Your work is just lovely.