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How Simone Bodmer-Turner’s Move to Rural Massachusetts Reshaped Her Studio Practice

A reported look at how Simone Bodmer-Turner’s move to rural western Massachusetts changed her materials, production spaces, interiors work and collaborations before the return of her kilns.

By ThatPainter Team Published
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Simone Bodmer-Turner’s move from Brooklyn to rural western Massachusetts changed both the logistics and the vocabulary of her work. She and her partner, Scott MacDonough, relocated around 2023 seeking more space, a permanent home, and a closer relationship with nature. The move temporarily stopped her normal ceramic production because her kiln and studio tools were not yet in place. That interruption opened a period of work in bronze, lacquered wood, silk, iron, steel, and plaster, while also making room for interiors and site-specific projects. By 2025, the kilns were running again, but the studio had not simply returned to its Brooklyn model: it had become a larger, more collaborative practice spread across a farmhouse, barn, and nearby mill facilities.

The result is best understood as an evolution rather than a rural makeover. Bodmer-Turner’s forms still grow from experiments with volume, negative space, and utility, but the Massachusetts setting altered her scale, materials, domestic surroundings, and working relationships.

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What changed when Simone Bodmer-Turner left New York for rural Massachusetts?

The immediate change was practical: Bodmer-Turner’s regular ceramics operation paused during the move. The longer-term change was structural. Without her usual kiln and tools, she began treating the studio as an expanded field of materials and collaborations rather than as a single room organized around clay.

In a conversation with NR, Bodmer-Turner described the effect of the new setting as “freeing,” saying, “It’s been freeing to be able to expand into the spaciousness of the countryside.” That spaciousness did not automatically produce more work or prove that rural life is artistically superior. It changed what was possible to make, where it could be made, and how the practice could include architecture, interiors, and a partner’s technical contribution.

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The move appears to have taken place around 2023. A May 2024 profile described the relocation as having happened about a year earlier, while later coverage discusses the farmhouse purchase and the studio build-out on a different timeline. The evidence supports a transition around 2023, not a single precisely documented moving date.

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Why did Bodmer-Turner and MacDonough move?

They gave three practical reasons: more space, ownership rather than continued renting, and a better relationship with nature and food. Bodmer-Turner told Family Style, “We wanted more space, to invest in something instead of continuing to rent, and to find a better balance with nature.”

Those motives matter because the move was not presented as an escape from New York’s art world or as a lifestyle brand. It was an investment in the conditions of making. A larger property could hold kilns, storage, worktables, architectural experiments, and domestic life in one connected environment. The countryside also supplied a different rhythm of observation: flowers, fields, weather, and the physical distance between the home, barn, and mill became part of the studio’s daily context.

MacDonough’s role developed alongside that change. He had supported projects informally since 2022 and became the studio’s director of interiors in 2025. He is trained as an engineer and also has a background in sculpture and photography. In Architectural Digest, he explained the gradual nature of the partnership: “Little by little, projects came in where Simone needed some structural advice.” His contribution is therefore not a sudden co-authorship claim; it grew from technical questions that emerged as Bodmer-Turner’s objects became larger, more architectural, or more closely tied to interiors.

How did the move interrupt her ceramic production?

Before Massachusetts, Bodmer-Turner’s practice was strongly identified with ceramics. The Emma Scully Gallery biography dates the introduction of her abstract ceramic vase line to 2018 and describes early forms organized around negative space and experimentation with clay. She introduced Chair I in 2021, followed by Chair II, an oversized credenza, and one-of-a-kind lighting works in 2022.

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Moving that operation was more complicated than transporting finished objects. A kiln requires suitable space, electrical capacity, ventilation, temperature control, clay and glaze storage, and room for drying and loading work. During the Massachusetts transition, the normal setup was unavailable. Rather than pretend that the interruption did not matter, Bodmer-Turner made work under those constraints.

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The clearest record of that period is A Year Without a Kiln, shown at Emma Scully Gallery in 2024. The exhibition included bronze, wood, lacquer, iron, silk, and steel. In the NR interview, Bodmer-Turner said that receiving an invitation for a solo show while in this altered situation made collaboration central to the work: “finding myself in this place with the invitation of a solo show, made collaboration key to the conceptualisation of the work.”

The title refers to a concrete absence, not a rejection of ceramics. The show demonstrated how her concerns could survive outside a firing cycle: weight, balance, surface, enclosure, reflection, and the relationship between an object and the room around it. It also made the production process visible. The material shift was a consequence of the move’s timing and infrastructure, not evidence that clay had become irrelevant.

What did A Year Without a Kiln reveal about the expanded practice?

The 2024 exhibition showed Bodmer-Turner treating materials as interchangeable tools for solving spatial and formal problems. Bronze could carry weight and permanence; lacquered wood introduced a controlled, reflective surface; silk changed the behavior of light and air; steel and iron supplied structure. Those choices allowed her to continue working at a moment when the kiln was unavailable.

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That does not mean the materials were equivalent. Ceramics retain the evidence of touch, compression, drying, glaze, and firing. Metal, wood, and textiles impose different technical decisions and involve different fabricators or collaborators. The importance of the exhibition lies in how it broadened the studio’s methods without erasing its ceramic origins.

The transition also strengthened the link between object and setting. A vase or chair can be considered on its own, but a plaster installation, a large mirror, or a room-scale arrangement asks how people move through an interior. MacDonough’s structural advice became more relevant as the work occupied more space. The studio could now address furniture, lighting, and architectural surfaces as part of one continuum.

A Year Without a Kiln ended on June 22, 2024, according to Family Style. It should be read as a completed exhibition documenting a period of transition, not as a show that remains on view.

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When did the kilns return?

By May 2025, reporting from Vogue said the kilns were running again and identified Spade Vessels as Bodmer-Turner’s first ceramic endeavor since the lifestyle change. The collection was described as drawing on the Massachusetts countryside, including the forms and rhythms she encountered there. Vogue also reported that she carries clippers on walks and gathers wild stems for her vases, saying, “I take my clippers out on walks, go out into the fields, and cut whatever I’m seeing.”

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That report marks a return to clay, not a return to the old studio. In its October 2025 profile, Architectural Digest described multiple kilns at the farmhouse and a nearby mill facility, along with ceramic chairs, lamps, and tableware in development. The same article places a worktable room at the center of the home’s ongoing renovation. Bodmer-Turner called it “the first room that we’ve finished, floor to ceiling,” and “a testing ground for the rest of the house.”

Because these are dated reports, they do not establish what is currently in production or which pieces are available. They do establish the direction of the practice at that point: ceramics had resumed inside a distributed studio that also supported interiors, furniture, and larger installations.

How does the Massachusetts studio differ from the Brooklyn setup?

The contrast is clearest when the practices are placed side by side. The sources describe a change in conditions, materials, scale, and collaboration rather than a simple before-and-after improvement.

Axis Brooklyn period Massachusetts transition and expansion
Primary material Ceramics, including abstract vessels and later furniture and lighting Bronze, lacquered wood, silk, iron, and steel during the kiln pause; ceramics resumed by 2025
Production setup A regular ceramic studio organized around Bodmer-Turner’s usual kiln and tools Farmhouse, barn, and nearby mill facilities with multiple kilns and room for interiors work
Scale and function Vases and vessels expanding into chairs, a credenza, and lighting Vessels alongside furniture, ceramic chairs and lamps, tableware, mirrors, and plaster or site-specific work
Collaboration Solo studio origins, with outside production needs as projects grew MacDonough’s structural and interiors role, plus ceramic development led by Justine Barrett Figura
Environmental input Urban studio conditions Fields, gathered flowers, domestic renovation, and a closer daily relationship with land and food

This comparison should not be mistaken for a causal claim that the countryside made the work better. It shows how a new property and a temporary loss of equipment altered the available decisions. The practice became more varied because its circumstances became more varied.

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What role does Scott MacDonough play in the studio?

MacDonough’s role is both technical and spatial. As director of interiors from 2025, he helps translate Bodmer-Turner’s objects into rooms and larger projects. His engineering training is useful when a work must support weight, attach to a wall, carry light, or function safely in a domestic setting. His sculpture and photography background also gives him an understanding of form and image rather than treating the work as purely constructional.

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Architectural Digest gives a revealing example: MacDonough helped troubleshoot an eight-foot-tall mirror. The anecdote matters because it shows collaboration at the point where an artwork becomes an architectural problem. A large mirror requires decisions about reinforcement, hanging, transport, and the wall that receives it. Those questions are different from making a small vessel, but they grow from the same interest in proportion, surface, and spatial presence.

Bodmer-Turner’s ceramics team also expanded. Justine Barrett Figura leads ceramic development, indicating that the Massachusetts studio is not a solitary production room in which every task passes through one person. Delegating development can preserve the artist’s formal direction while allowing the practice to handle more complex objects, tableware, furniture, and interiors.

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What are the new tableware and interior projects trying to do?

The tableware under development illustrates Bodmer-Turner’s effort to balance use and sculptural character. She told Architectural Digest, “I want them to be the in-between of sturdy and elegant.” That phrase describes a functional ambition: objects should withstand handling while retaining the irregularity, restraint, and visual tension associated with her studio work.

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Interiors provide another testing ground. The finished worktable room is not merely a backdrop for photographs; Bodmer-Turner described it as a place to test the rest of the house. In that setting, a table, lamp, vessel, wall treatment, or mirror can be judged in relation to one another. The room becomes a prototype for how the studio’s objects behave together.

This is why the Massachusetts practice cannot be reduced to a larger ceramics workshop. It is also an interiors practice, with objects designed for rooms and rooms treated as an extension of the work. The farmhouse, barn, and mill facilities create a network in which domestic renovation, fabrication, and exhibition-making overlap.

How has rural life entered the forms without becoming a generic “country” aesthetic?

The sources point to specific habits rather than a broad pastoral style. Bodmer-Turner gathers flowers on walks, observes field growth, and uses the house and surrounding structures as working environments. Vogue connected Spade Vessels to the Massachusetts countryside, but the reporting does not claim that every form depicts a landscape or that rural motifs replaced abstraction.

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Her statement about clippers is useful because it links landscape to use. Flowers are cut for vases; the vase is encountered through an act of gathering; the arrangement changes the room. The countryside enters through a chain of practices—walking, collecting, arranging, living—not through decorative symbolism alone.

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Likewise, the goal of “a better balance with nature” does not mean a withdrawal from design infrastructure. Kilns, engineering, fabrication, and interiors planning remain central. The studio’s rural identity is therefore practical and relational: land, buildings, tools, collaborators, and domestic routines now meet in the same working system.

What does the timeline say about the evolution of Bodmer-Turner’s work?

  1. 2018: Emma Scully Gallery dates the introduction of Bodmer-Turner’s abstract ceramic vase line to this year. The early forms emphasized negative space and grew from ceramic experimentation.
  2. 2021: Chair I appeared, extending the practice from vessels toward furniture.
  3. 2022: Chair II, an oversized credenza, and one-of-a-kind lighting works followed, showing that the studio was already moving beyond conventional vases.
  4. Around 2023: Bodmer-Turner and MacDonough moved the practice from Brooklyn to rural western Massachusetts. The exact move date is not established by the sources.
  5. 2024: The kiln pause shaped A Year Without a Kiln, an exhibition of bronze, wood, lacquer, silk, iron, and steel. Collaboration became central to its conception.
  6. 2025: The kilns were reported as operating again; Spade Vessels marked a new ceramic phase, while interiors, ceramic furniture, lighting, and tableware continued to develop.

Seen in sequence, the move did not create Bodmer-Turner’s interest in furniture or space. Those interests were already visible in 2021 and 2022. Massachusetts changed the scale and infrastructure through which they could be pursued.

What should readers take from the move?

Bodmer-Turner’s relocation is a case study in how artistic practices adapt when equipment, space, and daily routines change at once. The kiln pause forced a material detour, but it also exposed continuities: attention to negative space, the tension between utility and sculpture, and a concern with how objects occupy rooms.

When ceramics returned, they returned to a broader ecosystem. MacDonough’s interiors role, Figura’s ceramic development leadership, the farmhouse and mill facilities, and the influence of gathered flowers all became part of the studio’s operating picture. The most accurate description is not that rural Massachusetts transformed a New York artist into someone else. It gave an existing practice new rooms, new constraints, and new collaborators—and those conditions expanded what the work could hold.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Did Simone Bodmer-Turner permanently stop making ceramics?

No. Her regular ceramic production paused during the move, but Vogue reported that the kilns were running again by May 2025. The later work should be understood as a resumed ceramic practice within a larger studio, not a permanent departure from clay.

Where was A Year Without a Kiln exhibited?

The exhibition was presented at Emma Scully Gallery in 2024 and was scheduled to remain on view through June 22, 2024. That date has passed, so current viewing or inventory should not be assumed.

Who leads ceramic development for Bodmer-Turner’s studio?

Justine Barrett Figura leads ceramic development. Her role reflects the studio’s move toward a collaborative production structure as projects encompass more complex vessels, furniture, and tableware.

What is Spade Vessels?

Spade Vessels is the ceramic collection Vogue identified as Bodmer-Turner’s first ceramic endeavor after the lifestyle and studio transition. The report connects its forms to the Massachusetts countryside, but it does not establish that every piece is currently available.

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