We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tiffany Nesbit a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tiffany, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Past Work:

My studio practice has been heavily influenced by childhood memories learning how to shepherd the family’s small farm in Louisiana; protecting the domestic animals on the property from monsters that come out from the woods and water systems at night. The characters in the work use humor and play to memorialize the animal’s spirits that once lived there.
The body of work “Piles and Bundles,” started by forming hundreds of small fragmented oceanic-like forms made with various clay bodies. After fired, the clay pieces are then bound and tied together with raw jute rope, fishing nets, bungy cords, mixed with found objects and old structures rediscovered on my family’s farm from 20+ years ago. Both the handmade forms and the found objects are stacked on top of each other to form what I call “Trash Islands.” The installation of these islands has been flexible. Each time the work is displayed in a galley, the piles and bundles are re arranged and organized differently to fit the specific space. Through this process, I have become interested in how similar the characteristics of the piles and bundles are to the actual trash in local water systems in Bayou Lacombe, Louisiana. In the water systems, the trash naturally floats and moves, collecting more trash and changing over time; creating large masses of real estate for small animals to escape from predators.
“Piles and Bundles,” is a bridge to “Bluegrass Nest.” Rather than creating a mass sculptural island, I started making smaller bundles of these organically shaped clay pieces and making smaller piles mobile on wheels. The Nests on wheels are becoming more specific to the creature created for the piece. For example, the work “A Opossums Last Dinner” caters to the story of a clutch of chicken eggs being eaten by an opossum. The chicken eggs and a head of the opossum are visible by the viewer, but there is no mother hen. The nest is constructed inside of 2 live traps. The eggs have been taken by the mother hen and placed into a trap to catch the predator and trespasser opossum.
In correspondence with making these 2 bodies of work, I have been collaging wood cuts and screen prints on paper, then sewing them together with old drawings and paintings from past bodies of work. The prints are influenced by insects and plants that are indigenous to southern states. Insects like water bugs, termites, beetles, along with tropical plants are carved into mdf board, inked, printed on top of my old paintings, and then sewn together to make one large hanging structure. This structure acts as a forest or rural landscape for the sculptural creatures, piles and bundles, and nests.

Current Work:

Over the past year, my practice has been going in a new direction. It has given me a concrete backbone in moral beliefs and has greatly deepened my relationship with God. My previous main bodies of work, “Piles and Bundles, and “Bluegrass Nest,” discussed the concept of man vs. nature while exploring my belief in a higher power. Today, I crave a deeper understanding of biblical stories that have been passed down through millenniums and countless generations and are still relevant today. Why are they so important? What lessons do they teach? How have these stories survived wars, genocides, and communist regimes, etc. I aim to preserve these parables through ceramics, so that wisdom can continue to be passed down to my children, and to theirs.

The project will include depictions of the 10 plagues of the book of Exodus from the Old Testament, when God sent mosses to pharaoh and demanded to let the enslaved Israelites, so that they can do good by God. Each vessel will depict 1 of the 10 plagues, carved onto the surface of the raw clay. The vessels will be formed based off of 18th dynasty Egyptian pottery, the era that the book of exodus is thought to have taken place in the new kingdom of Egypt.

This is certainly a work in progress and I’m excited to let it evolve further into a new direction. Prior to this, my practice has been focused on the spirits of animals of the land, and how they interact with the earth. Now, I’m making work about the spirits of our human ancestors, and the importance of their tribulations to fight for freedom throughout time.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m originally from Louisiana, born in New Orleans. I moved to Houston to get my MFA in sculpture. I’ve been here for about 4 years. The art market scene has treated me very well, so I’ll probably stick around a while. You can find me normally at the first Saturday Arts Market on 19th street, and the Second Saturday Folk Market at Sawyer Yards every month September-March. I sell my pottery, sculptures, and collages for patrons to take home.

You can also buy directly from my pottery shop page : https://www.tiffanyangelnesbit.com/pottery-2023

I also teach wheel throwing at the studio Third Coast Clay:
https://www.3rdcoastclay.com/service-page/tuesday-afternoons-w-tiffany-2?referral=service_list_widget

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

There are many rewarding aspects of being an artist. For one, I never have to settle with one idea. I typically work with several projects or ideas at once. I usually work with one large theme while working on my sculptures, but then bounce around to making functional pottery. Bouncing back and forth between ideas allows the practice to breathe and become more developed as time goes on.

Another rewarding aspect is that everything in my life relates to my practice. My relationships with family, friends, animals, landscapes, and God really inspires the work. I’m able to find beauty in small things, when our culture seems to be filled with ugliness and vulgarity. I’m able to escape into my work, and create something that has a touch of beauty, and hopefully a long lasting significance for others to enjoy.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

There has been several big life changers in my young adult life that have greatly affected the way I think about the art world. I think the biggest one is of course dealing with art school. I had a blast while earning my bachelors, because my mentors really cared about craftsmanship, skill building, keeping a backbone, and taught me to keep a sense of humor about things, even when its difficult, and to stay focused on why I wanted to make art. That changed when I went for my MFA. The program focused on what was popular in the propaganda art scene and theory. Once I was done with school, I had the freedom to go back just focusing on craftsmanship and to read more about history beyond the past 50 years. So I feel like my work is about to explode in a better direction. I’ve been able to do a lot of reading on ancient pottery and how it was made. I’m also in love with cave paintings, and how the paintings survived natural disasters after hundreds and thousands of years. Especially when the pigments are made from natural powders like charcoal and animal bone. It’s amazing to me that ancient people, and even some parts of the world today, hunt to survive everyday, and still made time to harvest pigments, process them, and make art. Thinking about it is extremely humbling and keeps me motivated to make my own work, even if I don’t feel like it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tiffanyangelnesbit.com
• Instagram: @tiffanyangelstudioartist

Image Credits
Tiffany Angel Nesbit