Artist Statement
SWEEPING STORIES: Handmade Brooms as Living Art
Every broom here is inspired by the history of Encinitas. The settlers who named their colony olive grove in 1884. The Ecke family, whose poinsettia fields made this town known worldwide. The bluffs Leucadia was named for. The native plants volunteers put back in the ground every year.
I build these from broomcorn, wood, and twine, with enough tension in the winding to hold for years. They are made to sweep. They are also made to be looked at, hung on a wall and considered.
That is what living art means to me. Not an object behind glass, but a beautiful tool you pick up and carries a story about where you live.
Sweeping is repetitive and necessary. The tools we use to care for our homes should be worth reaching for.
About the Creative
Meet Carrie
Carrie Kelley is a multidisciplinary maker based in Encinitas, California. She arrived at the studio by an unusual route, beginning in finance and moving through creative direction, media consulting, and brand identity work, including time as a producer and reality television personality. She stepped away from that career to raise two children, and from 2015 to 2019 she taught multimedia art as a volunteer at their elementary school, using hands-on artwork to strengthen the joy of exploration across every subject, for all types of learners.
Carrie has worked with her hands since she was eight, beginning with fiber and moving through ceramics, photography, and glass. She began work as a glass blower in 1999 and has studied at the Corning Studio, Penland School of Craft, and later in Germany and Italy. In 2021 she started making brooms to keep the grip and forearm strength that glassblowing demands,
and the exercise became the work.
"Sweeping Stories" is her first body of work in twenty years. It is inspired by the historical Encinitas landscapes community that she first visited as a High School student in 1992 and a return to the handmade craft she started with.