Maria Moyer goes from being a brand strategist to artist while still following a sustainable map.

What happens when you pick a road and stick to it? You get good at one thing and are ready for another. So goes the life highway of Wink Communication founder Maria Moyer. We’ve been big fans of Moyer for some time having discovered her work through an inspiring New York Times article on the Bureau of Friends back in 2009.

Successfully weaving sustainability and social issues into her work as a brand strategist at Wink, Moyer is now ready to examine the life aquatic with an art exhibit titled Blue, dedicated to the complexities of ocean based on her bi-coastal life in California and New York. The collection will be open to the public September 8th, at ROGAN in New York City and her pieces can be seen indefinitely  at BDDW.

“The collection is really a moment of reflection for me,” says Moyer, who has always lived by the ocean, having grown up in Southern California.

She says on her site that her childhood permitted frequent access to ocean landscapes and creatures, citing even at age 11, “while other kids played with dolls and Lego sets,” Moyer had an opportunity—under the watchful eye of a professor—to dissect a beached 18-foot squid. Years later, while her friends bought Eurail passes for trips abroad, she ventured farther into the Pacific, backpacking through remote areas of the Hawaiian Islands.

Susan Casey, O Magazine Editor-in-Chief and bestselling author of The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean and The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks, says Moyer’s work is a “gorgeous blend of sensitivity and sensibility; she never fails to spot the beauty of the natural world—even if it’s hidden 20,000 leagues beneath the sea. But it’s one thing to identify the sublime essence of, say, zooplankton or roses, and another thing to translate it into exquisite forms. For Maria, the former invariably leads to the latter.  There is no better word I can think of to describe her unique mix of whimsy, sophistication, and science than: delightful.”

While you can currently see some of Moyer’s art at BDDW in New York City, on September 7th, Bowery based fashion label ROGAN will host an invite only “cultural cross-roads of surf, fashion, arts and music in NYC creating a movement inspired by city and ocean.” ROGAN has invited friends to collaborate and create one-of-a-kind pieces and limited edition capsule collections for ROGAN VS. LOOMSTATE-SRF CTY, to be sold exclusively at the ROGAN store. The Blue collection will open to the public on September 8th, with 10% of all sales benefiting Waves for Water.

Julie Gilhart (with Anna Wintour) wearing Moyer’s Circle and Swirl necklace.

We were lucky to catch up with Moyer this week to ask a few questions about her collection and the inspiration behind it.

Here’s what she had to say.

One part of your life deals with helping others to set communication strategy and to develop clear messages (Wink Communication), the other asks you to create and tell the world who YOU are and what’s important to you through your art. Is this a challenge for you, or do they compliment each other?

I’m so glad you asked this question. It’s a good one. The answer: Both. Trying to do both is both a challenge AND these roles compliment each other. I want to be good at both. Making porcelain objects or creating things from wood is a great joy. It’s also intellectually and physically challenging. At the same time, it is somewhat solitary and a little self-absorbing as I persist in getting an idea across, or in my attempt to get a specific result from the material. On the other hand, my consulting practice is highly collaborative and in service to a person or an organization, many of whom are in pursuit of a greater good themselves. My work with Yves Behar, for example. Both compliment each other as they are the social and solitary parts of me. The challenge is time management. Isn’t it always?

“Untitled,” Unglazed stoneware frames (this piece contains 12 frames), sand, feathers, a eucalyptus leaf, a skate egg case, seaweed, and surf wax remnants.

Your Southern California childhood had a direct effect on your appreciation for ocean. Of all aspects of life lived by the ocean, why go for promoting “the tiny plants and animals at the foundation of the Earth’s food chain?”

Have you seen photos of plankton under a microscope? They are gorgeous. I will have a life-time of inspiration from them alone. Many of them come with a silica-based armor (not unlike porcelain) that protects them from predators – a most complex and miraculous architecture. If their beauty doesn’t get your attention, the facts might: Phytoplankton, including algae, sink more carbon than our Earth’s forests and they are also, as you said, a huge part of the world’s food chain. Beauty and power.
To know them is to LOVE them.

Temporary Bliss Bird Vessel (and necklace). Stoneware, unglazed porcelain and (azo, chromium and lead-free) leather cord. Available at BDDW in NYC.

What’s your favorite piece and why?

More than the resulting object itself, the process of making them is what makes something a favorite. It’s tough to choose between them. I’m very excited about a recent group that I call ‘vacuoles.’ They are in the “Blue” collection that I just (today) finished installing at Rogan in NYC. I also love and might not be able to part with an untitled wall installation at Rogan; it’s a bi-coastal archive of beach ephemera; a personal, natural-history journal. A lot of wonderful people in my life were involved in making this work. I had to get friends from all over to contribute sand from ‘my’ beaches. And I love a piece at BDDW that is a bird vessel.

Temporary Bliss Bird Vessel. Stoneware, unglazed porcelain and (azo, chromium and lead-free) leather cord. Available at BDDW in NYC.

Here’s a preview of more art from Blue at ROGAN as well as what you can find at BDDW.

Diatom. Unglazed porcelain. Approximately 6″ diameter.

Porcelain Breast Plate, (azo, chromium and lead free) leather cord.

Box of Hours. Stoneware and porcelain.

Blue Tab Necklace for ROGAN. Porcelain dipped in blue wash, (azo, chromium and lead free) leather cord. Various size and shapes.

Top image by Leslie Williamson

The post Maria Moyer Dives Deep Into the Blue and Surfaces With an Exhibit appeared first on EcoSalon.

Maria Moyer and Julie Gilhart

Just when you think you’ve met the most amazing woman, three more walk through the door. In this case, I’m talking about a whole Bureau of Friends consisting of some of the smartest women in the sustainable world.

When I say “sustainable,” I mean it in the fullest sense of the word – for all these women are participating in something balanced, whether coaching people on how to love and sell their work or personally creating something of significance in a studio. From all there’s an awareness and a promoting of  the fine balance of living and meaning.

Maria Moyer (Founder of Wink Communication), Julie Gilhart (Barney’s Fashion Director), Natalie Chanin (Designer, Founder of Alabama Chanin), and Cathy Bailey (Co-owner of HEATH Ceramics) make up the core of the Bureau whose main mission is to create dialogue, and in so doing, help people understand objects of quality and experiences in their lives that ring true.

One of the ways they’ve done this is through their “Making and Meaning” workshops, where the group invites interesting people to talk about their current projects and ideas which, over making a craft, organically becomes something more than just networking with really cool people.

A modern day sewing circle? Maybe, but this series is evolving into something more substantial, like how we communicate with each other.

Natalie Chanin

Moyer sums up the group:

“We’re a talent agency for good works-a speakers’ bureau and consultancy; Conveners of designers, makers and thinkers.  In our media-drenched, social-networking-maxed lives, the four of us have combined our talents to engage people in meaningful ways that might lead to action-or at the very least, connect us to each other in more deeply than the alternatives.”

Husband and wife team, Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey, owners of Heath Ceramics

Recently formed, the Bureau has no defined expectations of what their future holds as a group, but based on their energy and passion, it can’t help but inspire, whatever the direction.

I recently caught up with Moyer, Chanin and Bailey, who were kind enough to answer a few questions.

Did you start working together because you felt compelled to? That something really important could happen if you did?

Natalie: Perhaps because I am rurally located, I felt that working together with this group would give me a feeling of belonging and inspire new growth, new ideas and a way to grow my work in a fresh (and sustainable) way. Once we had our first “meeting,” it was clear that belonging was more than a way to grow my business but to grow personally.

Cathy: I felt compelled by Maria and the women she wanted to bring together. I believe that when you have the opportunity to connect with people who you truly admire you need to take the time and opportunity to engage and collaborate, and that’s when worth while ideas and efforts are flourish.

Maria: Like many artists, entrepreneurs, and social minded people in my life, these women move me. I do feel compelled when I have the opportunity to work on things that matter to me, with people I admire and enjoy.

How have each of you engaged people in meaningful ways that might lead to action and how is the Bureau stronger because of it?

Natalie: The conversations that have grown around the tables are a great example of how belonging leads to action. First, we are inspired by one another to action; but, more importantly, the conversations begin at a single point and with all of the input become stronger and have led more concentrated ideas and projects. The whole of the unit is stronger than the strength of the individual parts.

Maria: I think our auction for Haiti is a good example. After writing checks and texting donations, The Bureau of Friends, and some of its friends, wanted to do more. So, we gathered items and services to auction – 100 percent of the proceeds go to Architecture for Humanity’s work in Haiti. Lutz & Patmos Cashmere, organic cotton bedding from West Elm and more coming. We hope these small gestures grow larger, with a little help from our friends.

Natalie Chanin talks craft at  Bureau’s New York “Making and Meaning” workshop

What are some future projects you have in store?

Natalie: Cathy and I are very excited about a collaboration between HEATH and Alabama Chanin. Working in her studio last fall was one of the highlights of my year!

Cathy: The HEATH-Alabama Chanin dinnerware project is very exciting. But, it’s the ongoing support, feedback and perspective that we are able to give each other as a group that’s extremely valuable to me – it will lead to more projects together that none of us would have taken on separately.

Do you agree that quality and craftsmanship are just as important as something sustainably designed?

Cathy: I believe that good and worthwhile objects are made in a quality way and that craftsmanship generally leads to longer lasting objects that will be appreciated for generations.

Are we asking people too much to consider appreciating both the objects they consume as well as how it was created?

Cathy: I love objects that show what goes into making them. It’s satisfying to be conscious of what I buy and use. By supporting local makers you naturally know a lot more about objects, and in turn the object becomes more meaningful and long lasting, so that’s one great idea to promote.

Maria: I think this is about helping consumers understand and appreciate quality. Quality, for me, includes beauty, manufacturing that considers the environment and the culture of the people making the item.

We all talk a lot about the future of sustainable design and whether we’ll need to even talk about it (it will just be designed that way). Would you suggest we just stop talking eco-language? Has it perhaps become a black mark when mentioned?

Maria: There’s so much education [still] to do with makers, retailers and buyers. It will be a long while before we can stop explaining things in eco-language. However, let’s remember please, that people stopped saying “horseless carriage” when we meant “car” and it wasn’t long before “color TV” became, simply “TV”.  I hope I’m alive to see certain eco-terms become obsolete because it’s just understood, integral, and implied.

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