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Artist Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong, Westport resident and Greenwich native, knows precisely where to look for inspiration for her sinuous ceramic sculptures. "Gesture is what interests me," she says. "Body language is beguiling. Gesture naturally conveys movement but can also be passive or submissive, playful or seductive, regal and proud. Gesture can tell a story."
Her fascination with gesture and its role in ceramics evolved during her Maryland Institute College of Art years, where her focus on graphic design later gave way to an "immersion" in ceramics.
Once she completed her degree, however, Armstrong tuned out art's siren song to become a freelance fashion stylist and editor. But by 2001, after nearly two decades of composing fashion photographs, she left to devote herself exclusively to devising "delicately stitched together" black and white porcelain ceramic sculptures and other works in her studio.
When her abstract figurative sculpture, "Jemima," won the 2002 Westport Arts Center Members Show, Armstrong was awarded a solo exhibit for her work. This was a "turning point," she says, which she followed up by submitting her sculptures for many other exhibits and competitions. Recognition rolled out, including selection as a 2005 Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Radius Emerging Artist and first place sculpture awards for two years in Silvermine Arts Guild's Art of the NorthEast. Armstrong's work has also been exhibited at Massachusetts's Fuller Craft Museum, City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport and at New Canaan's Carriage Barn Art Center.
In addition to her sculpture, Armstrong's relatively new HOMEwork Collection features vessels and bowls. These handmade, one-of-a-kind Danish influenced works are made using a process similar to her modernist sculptures. Calling them "deceptively minimalist," Armstrong explains that during creation they "are thrown, cut apart, reassembled, wiped down, sanded inside and out, painted and glazed."
This weekend, May 21 and 22, catch Jocelyn Braxton Armstrong's compelling sculptures and inventive collection of mugs, tea tumblers, nesting dishes, bowls and vases at The Bruce Museum's Annual Outdoor Crafts Festival, her first year participating. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. For more information, visit the Museum's website. To see Armstrong's work, visit her website.
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