A Beautiful Disaster | Lucy Ernst | Episode 612

Lucy Ernst | Episode 612

More than anything else Lucy Ernst is an environmental artist. Lucy started out sculpting with bones and ‘dead things’ and then moved into clay when she discovered the idea of wild clay. With her work Lucy wants to force people to open their eyes to the environment around them, to the wild things, and to change how they see their world, their everyday!

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Why does collecting the clay from the wild become so important to work that way?

There is an environmental message there. And a message about life and anti-consumerism and sustainability and re-connection for everyone and that is the message I want people to take away in the modern world. The world around you , it doesn’t matter where you are is amazing. And the things under your feet are special and the things that grown on your porch or your balcony or your huge property or the wildness around you exists. Connection to the wild for me is more important than anything else. Just struggling to make things from the world around you that are beautiful and capture wildness is what I try and strive to do. Everyday.

There are so many organizations that talk about the value of our planet and our environment. Why does the world need another voice like you?

You know what, it probably doesn’t. It’s just the fact that this is the only voice I have. And I wouldn’t be being true to my identity and the things I care about if I wasn’t doing me. So I hope that my voice is drowned out by the fantastic environmental universe of change. I hope that. But I think in a coal driven, oil driven economy there is probably room for one more artist.

Do you see yourself as more of an artist than anything else?

Yeah, definitely. An environmental artist. I still want to work with bones, I still want to work with branches and weaving and all manner of natural materials. I am just at the moment working with clay. And I think that eventually I will find a way to wither weave into the ceramics or incorporate other materials. But for me it is about all manner of natural materials. It’s just that clay happens to be a beautiful example of that.

You said you wanted the pathway to sales because you did not want the dreaded job. Why is a day job dreaded to you?

Because this is so much fun. And I have worked in arts business for a very long time and I am a stay at home mum at the moment. I have a very supportive husband and a one year old and being able to make art and pour my soul into it for the first time in my life is just such a joy. It is almost a drug. And it saddens me to think about not making every day.

One thing I noticed about your Instagram is your involvement of your one year old in your process. Do you think it is important to include your child in your making?

Well, I think you would have to ask him. He wants to be included in my making. So if I want to make he insists on being there. So I don’t think I really have a choice. When your mum works with piles of mud everyday what one year old wouldn’t think that they were invited to that party.

You said you are basically trying to make beauty out of disaster. The run off on the side of the road or a dead animal that you are trying to bring back into usefulness. How do you define beautiful disaster?

For me it is the underneath. People were really interested in my bone sculptures. A friend came over to see how I did it and a rat ran out of the skull cavity of a buffalo skull I was cleaning and she was just mortified and I was the worst friend in the world for awhile. When it was finishes and when it was white and painted and when it was beautiful everyone said they were beautiful, but it was me that dealt with the stank. And it was me that dealt with the rotting flesh and all those kinds of things. The transition from something that they deemed to be ugly, to smell bad and to be rotting and have them want to buy it at the end because they love it so much, you have changed how they see their world through the work that you did. That for me, is a power in that, in convincing people to see underneath is addictive.

Looking far into the future, you’ve had a beautiful life, it’s been good, but you’ve passed away and now all that’s left are your bones. Would you want someone to make art with your bones?

Umm. If it was good art, yes! Not if it was crap art! Then no, it would have to be good. If it made me look good then yeah, sure!