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Who is Mudi Makes?
Mudi Makes is the digital scrapbook of the Welsh-born, London-based artist Bethan Smith. Having trained as a freelance model maker and set designer, Smith is also a ceramicist. She began this account back in 2019 as a place to collate the imagery that inspires her.
“Mudi was a natural progression from that fast-paced and throwaway world of set design into something slower and more meaningful,” she says. “While researching, I’d often come across these incredibly beautiful and uplifting objects in museum catalogues, archives and books and I felt the need to save them somewhere so I could share them with others.”
Moving seamlessly between the ancient and the contemporary, Mudi Makes spans natural, utilitarian and art objects from across the world and throughout history.
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Why should you follow?
“Observations of joyful creations” is the tagline of Mudi Makes, and joyful is truly a befitting word. “The name Mudi comes from the Sanskrit word ‘Mudita’, meaning joy or more specifically ‘taking delight in the happiness of others’,” Smith explains.
From the carved and the spun to the woven and the pinched, this curated collection of objects injects moments of pure beauty and mind-boggling skill into Instagram’s endless scroll. While some of the images reacquaint users with legendary artists such as Leonora Carrington and Andy Goldsworthy, others introduce emerging practitioners, intricate feats of architecture, or the handiwork of anonymous artists.
“Mudi is about celebrating the joy of creation, indigenous and ancient craft, intuitive and uninhibited creations,” Smith says. “I hope what I share offers a reminder to stay playful and curious, but also to slow down and tread a little lighter on this earth.”
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What Instagram doesn’t tell you…
Smith has always collected unique objects but recently has started selling them too, offering her audience a chance to own a little slice of her unique vision.
“I currently source most objects from antiques markets and car boot sales in the UK. Occasionally I source online but it’s not quite the same, because I like being able to hold an object in my hand,” she says. “Sometimes it takes scouring a whole market or two before something really special jumps out at me, but that’s just part of the process.”
In keeping with the inspiration for Mudi Makes, a portion of all proceeds is donated to the Global Greengrants Fund, a charity working with indigenous communities to protect their natural resources. “Selling objects is a small way of giving back to the communities that inspire Mudi Makes most, “ she concludes, “those who are sadly bearing the brunt of the western world’s disconnect from the natural environment.”
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