Meet This Artist: Sculptor Carol Brainard

The Chatham Arts Council is investing in artists through our Meet This Artist (MTA) series, introducing you to 12 Chatham County artists each year in a big way. The fine folks at Hobbs Architects in downtown Pittsboro are powering our Meet This Artist series this year. Architecture is art, and the Hobbs crew values art in our community. So, take a look. Meet your very inspiring neighbors.

Carol Brainard is a sculptor whose figures tell stories and evoke emotions. Her sculptures, which draw inspiration from daily life as well as storybook characters, reflect her fascination with expression, narrative, and the human experience. Brainard was recently awarded an Artist Support Grant by United Arts of Raleigh and Wake County, which will allow her to experiment with expanding the scale of her work and explore new creative directions. She views each piece as a journey, embracing both the technical challenges and the unexpected discoveries that arise in her artistic process.

When did you discover that you were an artist? Do you remember?

I have loved the arts since I was a small child—drawing, painting, ceramics, playing several musical instruments, singing, acting, and writing. I can still remember my first ceramic figure in second grade, a pink elephant. 

Oh, what instruments did you play?

I played five different instruments. I played the clarinet, the flute, the organ and piano, the viola, and the guitar.

After college, I spent the next three decades fully engaged in my career as an organizational consultant and executive coach, a profession that required a lot of travel and left little time or energy for pursuing art. 

Do you still have an appreciation for music in your life?

I appreciate listening to it. I don’t perform it anymore.

I find the art we consume feeds what we put out creatively. 

I don’t often make art at home. I will do so more in the future, when we have our new home. I have done a bit of under glazing and painting here, and I’ll usually listen to a Pandora’s “Dinner Jazz” station or something quiet like that. When I’m working at Clayworx Studios in Pittsboro, the music tends to be more lively. Yacht rock. That kind of thing.

Back to your background. So, your career didn’t really allow you time or energy for creativity?

That’s right. Then in 1998, I had a brief but serious illness that stopped me in my tracks, prompting all of those big questions: “Who am I?”, “What am I doing with my life?”, and “What do I want to be doing?” My answer was to take a four month leave of absence to explore my relationship with the arts. I enrolled in an art history class at UNC, took drawing classes at the Durham Arts Council, served as a volunteer studio assistant, and had the extraordinary experience of figure sculpture classes with French sculptor Martine Vaugel.

Since then, I have been almost continually enrolled in drawing, painting, and ceramics classes at the Durham Arts Council, Ghost Ranch, The ArtsCenter in Carrboro,

Clayworx Studios in Pittsboro, and Pocosin Arts School. I have been taught, inspired and encouraged by wonderful artists and teachers—too many to list here, but particularly Chad Hughes, Larry Downing, Stacye Leanza, and Debbie Englund.

What was it like coming back to yourself as an artist?

Wow, that’s a great question. I just felt like such a beginner in terms of skills. I mean, the desire to work with clay again was there. I was really looking forward to putting my hands on it, but it was as though I had no idea how to work with it. I felt like I really had to learn the technicalities of ceramics all over again. It took a long time – I want to say two or three years – before I was back to feeling like I could see something in my mind and then create it with my hands, with the clay. It was not like getting back on a bicycle.

Was it frustrating to have a vision but feel lacking in the technical skill to make it happen?

It was very frustrating, definitely. You have to go through the whole process of learning to accept yourself and where you are at the moment. You have to learn to be patient and remember that the joy is in the process, not necessarily in the result. The teacher that I have at Clayworx is a wonderful woman named Debbie Englund. I can hear her words in the back of my mind saying, “It’s just dirt. At the end of the day, clay is just dirt.”

That definitely speaks to me. I’m a firm believer that the act of creation itself is more important than the final product.

It’s easy to forget that. Especially when you’re putting your work out there for other people to see. 

Speaking of raising the stakes, you were recently awarded an Artist Support Grant, which is the perfect opportunity for professional and developing artists to bring their work to the next level.

Before I even knew about the Artist Support Grant, I had it in my mind that I wanted to start building larger pieces. Part of my motivation was that I really wanted to have a piece in the North Carolina Botanical Garden – Sculpture in the Garden Exhibit. They mostly feature larger pieces, so I tried to figure out what I could make. I was also moving in the direction of being a little more lighthearted in my work and maybe even a little bit whimsical or silly. I decided to work on some Alice in Wonderland figures. I thought that the White Rabbit would be the perfect creation for a botanical garden show.

So, I tried to build a large White Rabbit. I put many, many hours into it and created a piece that I absolutely adored. I was so happy with it! The design was accepted by the NC Botanical Gardens before it had even been fired. They said, “As long as the firing comes through and everything’s fine, you’re in.” It blew up in the kiln.

Oh, no! That’s heartbreaking.

And I thought, “Okay, I guess I have some work to do with learning how to build at this scale. I heard from the Chatham Arts Council about the Artist Support Grant, and I thought, “Wow, to have some help!” The idea of having $1,500 to pay for classes and the equipment to manage a larger piece seemed like a fantastic opportunity. 

I’m so glad you got the award! How do you plan on making use of the funds?

What I really wanted to do was try to build the rabbit again. But when I read the application for the grant, I realized that I might have a better chance if I had a smaller-sized figure that I had already built to use as a maquette and show them, “This is my project. I’m going to make this figure and I’m going to make it three times the size.” Most of my figures have been no more than fifteen inches tall and now I would like to build my skills at scaling up my pieces to at least double the size.

Okay. Tell me about this project and the inspiration behind it.

The figure is entitled “Bess 1919”. She is based upon an artist’s colored pencil drawing of my friend’s grandmother, Bess, on her wedding day in 1919. Her going-away outfit is what the artist imagined Bess to be wearing based on the description in the newspaper wedding announcement. I had already done a couple small figures and I thought, “Wow, this could be fun. I bet I could make Bess!”

The figures I had made before were easy because the skirts went down to the ground, but I wanted Bess to have legs and shoes. That made it much, much more difficult because things don’t balance well on two feet. Humans do, but sculptures don’t. As I was building her, I thought, “I’m never going to be able to get her to stand up on her own.” I decided since she was in her going-away outfit, I would put suitcases around her for support.

When I’m creating faces so small, I really don’t have much control over what the expression is going to look like. She came out looking kind of frightened, and I thought, “Man, that is perfect.” A woman – a girl in 1919 on her wedding day, getting ready to go off with this man, her husband. Does she have some trepidation about her honeymoon? Or maybe this is not her wedding day and there is someplace else she is going. I am so interested to find out what story she is telling in the larger version of this piece.

That’s fascinating. Your project reminds me of the interview I had with Musician Dawn Landes in March of last year. She had reimagined music from a 1971 songbook about women’ s rights called The Liberated Woman’s Songbook. Then she recreated historical images of women from the turn of the century with a filmmaker/photographer.

That sounds so familiar. Would I have seen a performance or something?

You might have. There was a performance at Playmakers last year and the project was also part of the JumpstART walkabout at ClydeFEST.

Yes, yes, yes! At Playmakers.

I love that you both pulled from historical documents (in your case, the sketch based on the 1919 wedding announcement) to tell women’ s stories through art.

Initially I wasn’t really thinking about women’ s stories so much as I was interested in capturing the look and expressions of women. Without specific intention, many of my pieces have been women and girls of various ages and nationalities, from different periods in history, walks of life, and situations. Recently, I have become more intentional about wanting these women and girls to express themselves through their poses, clothing, and facial expressions. I’m interested in bringing forth their emotions and attitudes and letting them tell us their story.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Final question to wrap things up. Do you think you’ll ever return to following your White Rabbit?

Oh, you bet!

He’s out there somewhere.

You know, after the rabbit blew up, I said, “I’m not going to start any other large projects,” but with help from the Artist Support Grant, I now have the opportunity to figure things out. From a technical standpoint, it will be a huge challenge and learning experience for me. 

In the meantime, I have made six-inch figures of the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the Cheshire Cat. Right now I’m working on the Queen of Hearts, who’s holding a flamingo for the croquet match.

This project is supported by United Arts Wake County and the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.