S01E02: Briar Hardy-Hesson - The Fruit Bowl Studio

Briar Hardy-Hesson is a maker, jeweller, and founding member of the Arté Collective in Luggate. She operates under the name Fruit Bowl Studio - a name chosen deliberately, so she could never be pinned down to just one thing.We sat outside Briar’s old flat on Dungarvon Street in Wānaka, where the idea for her studio was first hatched, and talked about what it means to build a creative life on your own terms: outside formal institutions, without a timeline, and with a healthy respect for the work that hasn’t been made yet.Briar grew up with a ceramic artist mother who, by her own admission, “forced” her children to make things. She made it into Elam School of Fine Arts, lasted a year, and came south. She’s never looked back. What followed has come less from a plan, rather from her persistent, shape-shifting curiosity. Jewellery, clay, paint, resin, bronze, wax, lino, video, teaching, colour, ears on walls… all of it held together by an instinct that making is how she thinks.This episode is about what it feels like to work with someone’s ashes, why you should never talk about the piece you haven’t made yet, and what a bowl of fruit has to do with a life’s work.LinksWebsite: Fruit Bowl StudioInstagram: Fruit Bowl StudioFacebook: Fruit Bowl StudioWebsite: Arté Collective, LuggateInstagram: Arté CollectiveMusic mentioned: Fat Freddy’s Drop: Based on a True Story This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theunmakingpodcast.substack.com