Working out of her studio in Midcoast Maine, Erica Moody is a true American artisan.
Created in collaboration with Idea Farmer, KitchenAid documentary series pilot 'Portrait of a Maker’ delves into Erica's creative process, meeting the person and discovering the inspiration behind the work.
In 2020, you would be forgiven for thinking that the life of a solitary metal craftsman living out of her studio home in the middle of rural Maine would be the stuff of fantasy, a picture book fairytale plucked from yesteryear. And yet, the life of Erica Moody is no such fantasy, it is the story of an exceptional, disciplined and multi-talented maker living the life she always dreamed of.
Erica’s decision to leave a metropolitan life behind – she moved up the coast from Boston several years ago – was a very deliberate one. She refused to deny herself the life of an artist, and in Waldoboro, Maine she would find the perfect spot to set up shop. “I came to Maine to allow myself to explore this kind of making, but I don’t think I realised why…”. Erica’s process and lifestyle go hand in hand. For her, metalwork is all about discovery, and her lifestyle is much the same.
The idea of a product’s on going use and purpose, its permanency, physical existence and the marks that characterise its surface through use, is central to Erica’s ethos and process of making. “Metalwork is appealing in the sense of how permanent it can be,” she says, “I would hope that it could be something that could be passed along”. This is what she hopes for her own pieces, her own work; we as human beings may be mortal, but the art that we create is not.
Today, more than ever, Erica’s words rings so powerfully true, this idea of permanence through a physical object, something that is used rather than just ornamental, a lasting object in what is becoming an increasingly disposable world.
