Meet Brighid Connors

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brighid (BrēZH) Connors.

Hi Brighid, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Growing up in a suburb of Buffalo, NY, my childhood was filled with beeswax crayons, wooden toys, and very limited screen time. Carrying a wooden lunchbox to elementary school, filled with a tofu sandwich on whole wheat bread and browning apple slices packed in reused plastic bags — at five years old, I was already hyper-aware of the differences between my classmates and I. While struggling academically and socially, the art room was the only place that I felt confident.

After high school, I took a gap year and moved to Ireland with a one-way ticket to live and work in a curative community for adults with special needs. After one of the hardest and most formative years of my life, my friend and I backpacked from Greece up to Sweden by way of unmarked vans in Bulgaria, Croatian cowboys and overnight buses where we slept in shifts.

For undergrad, I spent four and a half years in a snowy small town with only one stoplight, where there wasn’t much else to do besides stay up late working in the studio. In 2013, I graduated with a BFA from Alfred University’s School of Art and Design, met my now husband Joe during an artist residency in NYC, then moved back home to Buffalo to work as a Construction Crew Leader for Habitat for Humanity.

In 2015, sick of trudging through snow, I convinced Joe to move across the country with me and the family I was nannying for. My husband and I eventually bought a fixer-upper in Pasadena, CA where I set up a studio in our two-car garage.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Money was always a source of stress during my childhood. I still recall my parents telling me that they couldn’t afford to send me to college, so if I planned to go, I better have good grades so that I could get a scholarship. Even with my scholarship, I nearly dropped out my first semester of Art School because I couldn’t afford to live on-campus (which was required) and buy the art supplies and textbooks necessary to complete my work. After confiding in a professor, who wrote a letter on my behalf, I was granted an exemption to live off-campus as a freshman. When money was especially tight, the grocery store became my art supply store, using food stamps to create cast-candy sculptures, bronze beetroots, ceramic asparagus and inspiring a senior show about food culture. Thanks to this social safety net and a job for the art history department that paid more than my work-study, I was able to complete my degree and graduate Summa Cum Laude as the highest-ranking senior.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a multimedia artist specializing in slip-cast porcelain ceramics. Slip casting feels a bit like alchemy to me; I am able to take an ephemeral object like a fruit or vegetable and transform it into an enduring piece of art. To do this, I create plaster molds of seasonal produce, which become bowls, vases, and incense holders in my mold-making-process. When I fill the plaster molds with slip (liquified clay), the plaster absorbs water from the slip and forms a clay shell. The shell is extracted from the mold, cleaned up, fired in a kiln, sanded and glazed, and fired again until it becomes the glasslike and translucent finished piece. Recently, I have begun designing, rendering and 3D printing forms that will be canvases for more detailed surface decoration.

I am most proud of the fact that I managed to create work during the very limited amount of time that I have as a full-time mom. Currently, my son’s nap time is studio time, so all of my work is made in small batches.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
One of the things that I love most about Los Angeles is the people. When I first moved here, I loved to compare the difference between going to the post office here vs New York City. Once I forgot to bring a pen to a Brooklyn post office and after being berated by the person behind the counter for wasting everyone’s time, I was denied service. My first time mailing a package in LA, I was greeted by an employee joyfully pointing out where the pens were if I needed one, which as a former New Yorker, I did not need. Additionally, I love that I can see snow in the distance during winter and never have to trudge through it.

My biggest complaint about LA, after the bad air quality, is the lack of bike infrastructure. Imagine how wonderful LA could be if you didn’t have to sit on the freeway and could safely bike from Pasadena to DTLA or Griffith Park!

Contact Info:

• Website: brighidconnors.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brighidconnors/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brighidconnors

Image Credits
Joe Fenstermaker and Brighid Connors