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Emma Baird | Episode 769
Emma Baird is a jeweler in Edinburgh, Scotland, who started her adventures with Clay in 2019. Emma started out by making some simple plaster molds and slip casting porcelain that she coloured with mason stains, before trying out some experimental glaze pours on slab built stoneware plates. Emma’s discovery of the endless possibilities with glazing led her to switch from porcelain to mainly work with stoneware and she finally got a wheel in March 2021. Emma’s homewares are bright and colourful and put the fun into functional!
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Does it open up your creativity by expanding your mediums and what art you work with?
It does for me in terms of re-igniting and kickstarting my creativity. So I don’t want to work with the silver and the clay together. I don’t know if that’s what you meant, but I wouldn’t be doing that but if I get frustrated or tired with the jewelry I can go and play with my pottery and then if I have a bad day with my pottery I can go back to my jewelry. So the two really complement each other in terms of how I work because the creative juices can come back and start flowing again if I have a frustrating experience with either one or the other. I would say they complement each other in terms of keeping me creative.
Did you get any push back from people saying, Stay in your own lane?
From going from jewelry to ceramics?
Yes.
I haven’t had anybody, from what I call Pottery Land, to be anything but lovely. I’ve found the community on Instagram just absolutely, wholeheartedly, a supportive bunch of people. They just seem to be the nicest people, I think, in the world. So not yet, and I hope not to. So no.
How do you feel that the jewelry making prepared you for ceramic making?
It probably prepared me for the ceramic making in that I’ve been around for quite a while with the jewelry making. I have had a lot of mixed experiences so I have more resilience going into the ceramics in terms of me as a person. But I think just the fact that I’ve been using my hands for 17 years, as a maker, I think that has got to have helped. Just the experience of working with your hands is I think picking up a ball of clay and learning how to throw just by sitting at the wheel. I haven’t gone to a course or anything, just being used to working with my hands has got to have made that easier.
Are you shocked by the response you have had coming from one medium to another?
By the response to my ceramics?
Yes.
Yes. Yes, people get really excited about ceramics and some people love my jewelry but I have not seen quite the same level of excitement about my jewelry. Even though I love it, but it doesn’t evoke the same reactions I see people have to my ceramics. And that’s partly why I love it because you know I can show people my work and they react to it and that’s new. That’s awesome.
Do you plan on making ceramic jewelry?
I started making some ceramic jewelry when I first started and probably not anymore. It’s quite time consuming and it’s not nearly as fun as making a bowl or a mug or some thing that I can glaze that’s got enough surface area to get that glaze on. So I will probably leave the jewelry for the gold and silver and stick to functional kind of stuff for the ceramics.
You are hand building, you are mold making, and you are throwing on the wheel. Which of those three are you most drawn to?
Wheel throwing. (laughter) By a mile. It’s just so much fun and you loose yourself when you are on the wheel. I mean, I am just new and my wheel throwing is fairly basic. I just can’t wait to really get some time under my belt and see what I can maybe throw when I can get a bit more height or get a moon vase or something larger and glaze it. So wheel throwing for sure.
Book
The Essential Guide to Mold Making and Slip Casting by Andrew Martin
Contact
Instagram: @adventureswith_clay