I Am Broad Ripple

Artist Emily Budd

March 7th 2015

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Earlier this week I met Emily Budd at her home studio in the near Broad Ripple area. Emily is a very talented bronze sculpture artist in addition to being an amazing jewelry artist who has exhibited in the Broad Ripple area. Anyone who’s been to Petite Chou Bistro in Broad Ripple has probably seen her rotating chalk art on display.

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Her work with bronze started during her college years in art school, “I really like the process and I was really drawn to it. I’m able to work in metal, wax and clay because it involved all 3 mediums,” Emily says, noting that it is definitely a technical skill but one that she loved mastering. It was at an art casting factory where she did an internship that she learned and evolved her own process through her own work.

 

If you’ve seen her work, you’ll notice that it involved many harsh, yet elegant lines and shapes. I asked her to elaborate on those forms and also the process of her work.

 

“I use a lot of spikey, thorny parts in my work and I have been inspired by those shapes for 10 years or more.” She likes the idea of taking something spiky and harsh and making it more inviting. The duality of the shapes is what drives this type of work.

 

Her jewelry and sculptures both involve casting. I asked what it was about casting that she was drawn to:

“Taking something you find and making it permanent, reproducing it and seeing what you can make out of all the parts of it. It’s sort of a way of remembering at the same time as reconstructing something that had one purpose but could also have another. With casting, it's the act of making multiples. It's the act of recreating a moment in time.”

 

She works with found objects and reproduces them to make multiples. As for her jewelry, resin ended up being a more immediate cast than bronze was while still being a fun challenge. With her resin work, she is able to experiment with colors and opacities. Another perk to working with resin is that it’s more lightweight.

 

“I begin by isolating shapes and textures found in nature and our environment, then I repetitively deconstruct them, ultimately turning them into something very complex; very much like a far-away object coming closer and closer into view and focus. I want the final sculpture to become the product of very intricate and seemingly-chaotic patterns and shapes, yet to look like a naturally-occurring form as a whole. There is a harmony between very simple forms and very complex ones evident in my work, as there is in the universe, and therefore in ourselves.”

 

 

We then discussed art in the Broad Ripple area and what we would like to see happen with it:

 

“I’m very happy to make art in Broad Ripple and share any kind of art I do with the Broad Ripple community. I’d like to see more pop-ups to the Broad Ripple area,” and hopefully with the help of Indy Collective, a group she is part of, they will bring more pop-ups to the area in the near future. “There's a lot of art in Broad Ripple but it's always nice to see more. I want people to come to Broad Ripple for the art.”

 

Her work can be found at Emily Budd Sculptures

For more information on the Indy Collective you can visit their website

By: Rachael Porter