Molly Bernstein
In a resort town like Cape May, souvenirs are ubiquitous, running from sweatshirts and tees to saltwater taffy and mugs. But a Molly Bernstein mug looks less like something you’d pick up at a souvenir shop and more like something you’d find in a gallery.
The West Cape May native (and proud West Cape May Elementary School alum) is the creative force behind Vessel Garden, where mugs are distinctive and large-scale vessels striking and sinuous. We chatted about what inspires the artist—who almost immediately balked at the term.
“Artist is a big word. I don’t think I ever felt comfortable running straight at it,” Molly said. “But I kept finding myself in those worlds. It was the only thing that I ever felt like I wasn’t trying at. When I was nine or ten my mom put my sister and me in Susan Ross’s ceramics classes during the summer. I don’t think I registered it then, but I felt a certain type of peace in this space called ‘a studio,’ this third space I hadn’t known existed—that people kept as their own. I’ve been following that since.”
Molly followed it to school, receiving a BFA from The University of the Arts, and studying ceramics at the Kyoei-Gama Ceramics School in Tokoname, Japan and The Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, and recently completing a three-year fellowship at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina. “I learned how to see everyday objects and structures as sculpture—or as art in general. Art school can be super insular, so I’m still unlearning some of the isolating habits of spending too much time in the studio. I’ve realized how important it is to cultivate a community and other interests outside of having a studio practice and how to hold those things in equal measure.”
She attributes a large part of her creativity and its foundation to growing up in Cape May. “I think growing up on an island gives you somewhat of a unique childhood,” Molly said. “My friends, my sister and I were let loose and allowed to roam around because of the tight-knit community and the physical boundaries an island provides.” A self-professed beach rat, she spent as much time there as possible. “When I was seven, Mike Owen, a local potter/surfer, taught me, my sister, and some friends how to surf. I got hooked. I see that foundation as my first experience with being in dialogue with a greater force—at the time the ocean, now a greater creative landscape—but they share a parallel that I know how to make sense of.”
Molly’s shift to creating distinctive practical items grew out of the culmination of that creative foundation coupled with school and travel. “I’d never been interested in functional work or tableware, but on a trip to Tokoname, Japan when I was in school, I saw everyone interpreting functional work through a sculptural lens. I didn’t know you could do that. It was a permission-giving moment that happened so fast, like a click. It still took me a few years to come to my own style of functional work, but when Lindsay Givens-Casale opened Givens, she asked for a couple pieces, and it just grew from there.”
Her process is, of course, off the beaten path. “Vessel Garden [works are] made out of coil-pinched porcelain, which is kind of like throwing in slow motion,” she said. “I think it’s important to find the pace you like to work at. Throwing on a wheel is too quick for me. I like the subtleties hand building offers. Sometimes the surfaces are airbrushed, sometimes they’re hand painted, but they’re always patterns, inside and out—like a good silk-lined jacket.”
Molly’s identical twin, Sarah, is also an artisan—a jeweler. Coincidence? “Not at all!” Molly said. “Both my parents are really creative, as is the community we grew up in. We were always encouraged to pursue it. I grew up being passed back and forth between my parents’ kite shop and The Flying Fish, my best friend’s family’s shop. We always thought it was normal to just make something for yourself in your own weird way.”
Find Molly’s work online at vesselgarden.com and at Givens on the Washington Mall in Cape May, and follow her on Instagram at multiple.selves. She’s based in Philadelphia at the Bok Building. She is a member of Crafting the Future. Other projects include a public arts initiative, Vacant Window Projects, and a showroom called Multiple Selves.
