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✧ Hailing from Cape Cod, Coco Raymond is a graduate of Bard College at Simon’s Rock with a double concentration in Ceramics and Archival & Museum Studies. Raised by a sculptor and a production potter-turned-glassblower, they have been working with clay their whole life. Their experience with wheel-throwing began in high school, but they consider their four years at Simon’s Rock and their summer studies at Alfred University their primary ceramics education. Coco teaches pottery at the Cape Cod Museum of Art and works as Associate Director at the Edward Gorey House. When not in the studio, Coco is usually either out on the water, singing sea shanties, reading in the woods, or in the middle of a Star Trek rewatch. ✧ I view myself as equal parts artisan and artist. As the child of a craftsperson and a sculptor, I have a deep respect for the process of creation in and of itself, as well as the significance of communication through creativity. I am committed to well-made, functional work; however, I rarely go into a piece without the weight of my identity and experiences behind me. My work is inevitably informed by my relationships with my home, gender, fatness, lesbianism, and disability. As a folk musician and memorykeeper in a rapidly homogenizing world, as well as a fourteenth-generation Cape Codder, I'm heavily inspired by traditional symbolism and folk art and dedicated to its preservation in the modern day -- everything from sailors’ tattoos to the mano cornuto to scrimshaw-inspired carvings of local marine life shows up in my work. Despite my traditional roots, much of my work reflects the influence of the boundary-pushing women and LGBTQ+ artists I have been exposed to throughout my life, which I pay tribute to by merging my folk sensibilities with queer aesthetics, lesbian history, and writings on butch identity. ✧ For me, my work is very much just that: work. But if I can make objects that we use every day a little more personal, meaningful, or just beautiful, I’ve done my job. ✧ |
Photo by Sherilyn Furneaux.
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