About us!
The Brush Company is the collaborative art practice of husband-and-wife duo Kedrick McKenzie and Raegan Galleher. During the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, in that brief window of time where people were making sourdough bread and cheering for frontline workers, we combined Kedrick’s ceramic work and Raegan’s fiber experience and experimented with making handmade ceramic brooms. From that starting point, The Brush Company developed toward our goal of making objects that contain a small strain of that utopian spirit we felt in those dark days when strangers felt a little more willing to help each other out. Our work balances on a seesaw between functionality and whimsy with a dedication to craft as the fulcrum.
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The Brush Company emerged from other makers sharing their processes and giving the opportunity to other craftspeople to remix and reuse their work. Kedrick has spent years working in community art spaces, and both have benefited immensely from working and learning from other artists. The objects we create aim to be a celebration of the shared desire to make cherished and special objects that run through so many of us.
Our work is engaged in a dialogue with contemporary ceramics that is important and of the moment. Industrial ceramics have had an enormous impact on the aesthetics of American homes and have been an often unaddressed force on the studio art movement in the US. Engaging with historical references such as Fiesta Tableware, Russell Wright, and contemporary makers like Klein Reid, Felt+Fat, and Jonathan Adler, our functional and non-functional objects alternate between being purposefully crafted for use and being intentionally rendered “useless.” That play with functionality intentionally calls to question the streamlined minimalism in Modernist design. We find the tension between our desire for well-crafted individualized objects and our love of well-designed mass-produced functional ware fertile soil.
Behind the Scenes
We make everything by hand, from ceramic elements, to tampico fiber bristles to beaded handles.
You can find us at our studio most weekends with our amazing dog, Cheese!