- By
- Lily Sullivan
- Photography by
- Skye Parrott
Set design by David de Quevedo at ArtList.
BEAU RUSH
Beau Rush, a new ceramics line founded earlier this year by Cameron Bishop, is on the rise. Named after her three-year-old daughter Beau, Bishop’s bright pottery is making its way into some of New York’s coolest spots, like Camille Becerra’s new Nolita restaurant De Maria. After spending eight years in school, receiving both a BFA and an MFA before moving to New York, the designer originally planned to become a sculptor, creating figure-based work with clay. Her new work, however, serves as a departure from her fine-arts training. “Artists are not often friends with the term functional,” says Bishop of her recent shift in the tone and intentionality of her work. “I had to cross over from the art side to crafts.”
Bishop spent this past summer at a residency at L’estudio, a café with an adjacent studio and events space. Friendly with the owners, she found herself setting up shop in the creative center nestled in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Using L’estudio primarily as a space of creation, Bishop outfitted the space with a kiln and worktables for readying clay and glazing completed pieces. With her close-knit community of friends and fellow creatives, she also launched an all-woman show focusing on the female figure entitled “Breast in Show” in the gallery attached to her clay room. Bishop curated works from a number of mediums, showcasing the intersection of crafts and fine art.
In New York, Bishop’s community extends beyond the art world. With a dynamic past in restaurants and bars, she is no stranger to the food industry. During her days as a sculptor in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, she worked alongside names such as Ian Schrager and André Balazs, so restaurants seemed like a natural space to start when she made her shift. Her first job was De Maria, developing tabletop pieces for service. In her process, she notes the importance of color palette and purpose of use, partnered with a strong clay body for longevity. Since then, she has outfitted Egg Shop’s Brooklyn location, created a new pottery collection that will live at L’estudio’s café, and developed a small line of planters for the home-goods store Homecoming.
Not all of that fine-art training is lost for Bishop, however. A lecture by Kerry James Marshall she attended during a residency in South Florida has stuck with her, especially when he noted, “You have to name it at some point. Call it a door if it’s a door. It can look whatever the fuck you want the door to look like, but name what it is, and then your viewer will know how to view it.”
Bishop’s line marries form and function, holding true to what she has been taught and now practices. She notes, “That has really stuck with me, even with this functional work—is this a plate, is this a bowl, is it a serving bowl, is it for a restaurant or for home? It’s funny how that very intense art world and art theory are coming over into this very functional work. The two in uence each other in a very unexpected way.
For more information, please visit BeauRushCeramics.com.
- By
- Lily Sullivan
- Photography by
- Skye Parrott
Set design by David de Quevedo at ArtList.
