How do you describe your work or practice in 50 words or less?
I use antique machinery, techniques, and tools married with new and historic materials to preserve cultural heritage and make new objects. I work with machines made by magicians and scientists of our past to record the passing of time, bring inanimate forms to life, and pluck music from resonating steel combs.

In these times of COVID-19 isolation, social unrest, and calls for change, where are you finding beauty?
I find beauty in seeing the love that is bringing people together in these trying times and to stand up for what is right. There is also beauty in the nature of time itself. I know that everything passes with time, and as trying as these moments are for us, I believe things will continue to change for the better.

↑ Brittany working with a piece of antique machinery.
Photo: Courtesy of Brittany Nicole Cox

↑ Brittany's feature in "Beauty After Damage" takes a close look at her work repairing a mechanical singing bird box.
Photo: Courtesy of Brittany Nicole Cox

What are your thoughts on the relationship between craft and beauty?
There is a long tradition in craft, generations of knowledge that have worked together to build beautiful things meant to inspire and invoke the sublime. I carry this inheritance, weaving the thread of lineage lost and gained into my work. There is a discipline in handmade objects, especially those made to perfection with rigid tolerances. They are proof that beauty can drive someone to master many disciplines for the sake of something greater.

What’s one of your favorite tools in your workshop?
Miniature compasses. I have a small collection of these. Watchmakers would use these tiny compasses by placing one above an oscillating balance wheel in a watch. Here the arrow of the compass would tell the watchmaker whether or not the balance was magnetized by oscillating with the balance or pointing at true north.