Member of the Month: Sydney Brown

Website: https://mamasstudio.art
Instagram: @mamasstudio

Tell us a little about yourself.

There are many roles and jobs and joys in my life- I am a mother, a teacher, a postpartum doula, but I am most completely myself when I am making or writing.

What is your favorite tool and why?

My favorite tool, and the tool I can’t live without are different. My favorite tool is my grandfather’s very old and perfectly worn ball peen hammer. It reminds me that I come from generations of makers. That reality makes me feel less alone.

Which materials do you create with most and what is your attraction to using them?

I find myself using copper, and a needle and thread most often. I keep trying to make models out of paper, like I was taught. Recently though, I find myself needing to go straight to metal, and skip the maquettes because metal just makes sense to me. After so many years, its behavior rarely surprises me. Needle and thread feed my need for slowing things down and working in the quiet. I can draw pictures with it, or clearly makes a statement with text.

Where do you draw your inspiration form? 

So much of my work stems from life’s transitions. Having babies, aging and grief. The anxieties that accompany the depth of love I feel for living and witnessing the lives of those I love, can overwhelm and exhaust me. Making work about it, moves the experience through my body, unsticks it, allows me to breathe and feel space around my longing and fears. Raising a person can really feel like it levels the playing field. Every child has a meltdown in public. Every adult wishes they weren’t parenting with an audience. Often, my work captures both the vulnerable tenderness and the exhausting doldrums of trying to be your own human while keeping other humans alive. Parenting is as mundane and isolating as it is privilege and sweetness. Something is undeniably true one moment and wildly unreliable the next. Much of my artwork can be seen as easily from my mother’s point of view as one of my children. Remembering empathy and forgiveness for them both- and in turn for myself.

How long have you been working in metals and what brought you into this field?

I took my first metals class as a freshman in high school. I was smitten. A few years later, I was on my way to a fashion design program. I sat in on a talk by a very passionate sculptor and knew almost instantly I had to change majors. That sculptors were my people. That lead me to small metals, and eventually to a degree in welding as a trade. I am extremely grateful to have landed in teaching. I come from a long line of makers, and working with your body is hard to do forever. Teaching is beautiful, frustrating, adventurous and has longevity.

What piece of advice would you give to someone just starting out in metals?

Be patient and try to approach learning and making mistakes with curiosity and kindness to yourself. Working in metal can be a slow burn. Meaning, it can be love at first sight but building it into a skill that can transport, and support you takes time and resilience. Also- eat snacks, go to bed when you can tell you’re going to break something, and take fresh air breaks from the studio.

What has been the biggest challenge for you as a metal artist and have you overcome it, or how are you working to overcome it?

I think my biggest challenge has been my belief around making metalsmithing a career. In my experience, art school did not paint a realistic picture of post-graduation life. I was not prepared for the disappointment of not being able to turn my art degree into a living quickly. It took many years and several degrees to find myself happy and fulfilled in a fully creative life. Everything I do in my life- caring for babies, being a mother and partner, mentoring and teaching- is informed by being an artist. I do feel I am on the other side of that challenge. There will always be more, but I am consistently (eventually!) able to find the benefit in failure and struggle.