2.6 Beca Beeby: Art as Play
Hello! Welcome to series 2 episode 6 of Prompted by Nature, I hope this one finds you well. In this episode, I’m speaking with the lovely Beca Beeby, a nature-inspired ceramics and jewellery designer. I first came across Beca’s work on a wild food-related facebook group and immediately asked her to be a guest as her work is incredible and entirely unique.
Beca’s work has a highly aesthetic component which is juxtaposed with the thoughts behind it: her work tending to sit precariously on that faint, wobbly line between ‘Art’ & ‘Craft’: her jewellery and ceramics are wearable sculptures, or ‘useful sculptures’ and an attempt to share my awe with others.
An obsession with a certain repeating morphogenetic pattern, or occurrence, termed ‘three way junctions’ by the Natural Scientist and Mathematician D’arcy Thompson in 1912, that she began noticing years ago, has inspired the majority of what Beca does. Se believes that this is an unappreciated phenomenon, which, as well as being the strongest and most economical way of using any material, it is also the most beautiful (in my view!).
Beca’s hope is that her work could be thought hewn from the earth, to have grown at the bottom of the sea, emerged from a cocoon or constructed by a society of huge insects. Usually made in metal: Steel, copper, brass., bronze and silver, she also works in porcelain and stoneware clays, wax, lime/limecrete and biomaterials. Beca utilises plants and insects in her work, making sculptural pieces to ‘deform’ plants natural growth patterns or placing objects in her honeybee hives, encouraging them to build ‘wild’ honeycomb’ to use, and experimenting with Mycelium and ‘mycotecture’ -the use of mycelium in building structures and objects. Experimentation is a huge part of her practice, each piece of work inspiring and informing the next.
In this conversation, we discuss:
Her work and inspiration Her love of bees and wild bee-keeping Wild honeycomb as inspiration for her work How she keeps her work sustainable and eco-conscious Incorporating her love of folklore and blacksmithing in her work The distinction between art and craft and the fuzziness in-between Art as play Her own connection to nature What she would like to pass onto you Her hopes for the future
I highly recommend going to Beca’s website and looking at her beautiful work - I have my eye on one of her wild honeycomb bracelets - it’s just stunning!
You can find Beca on her website www.becabeeby.com or on @becabeeby
As always, I’m on www.promptedbynature.co.uk or on instagram @prompted.by.nature Remember to leave five-stars and a review if you can and stick around until the end of the episode when I’ll give you a little insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows this. Happy listening and I’ll speak to you after.
