Katherine Maloney | Clay
Art for Sale
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Q&A with Katherine
1. What is your chosen medium?
Ceramics
2. How did you start your career in art?
I’ve been making art my whole life and was introduced to clay as a teenager. My career started right after college (Guilford College) when I set up a home studio on my family’s farm and began selling at local fine art shows. An artist residency in 2016 at Starworks Clay Studio in NC really set things off for me in a more focused manner.
3. What informs your art?
Inspiration from time spent in nature observing plants and animals, traveling to other cultures and landscapes of the world, and how humans (as sensitive beings) interact with each other and the planet.
4. What jobs you have worked other than as a professional artist?
In high school I worked for a potter before going to college. Other than that, my additional source of income has always come from working on my family’s organic vegetable farm. For the last three years I’ve been a full time artist, however in this current moment I am (gratefully) working part time on the farm to compensate for cancelled spring shows and teaching gigs.
5. What questions do you ask yourself when starting to work?
What is the visual and emotional message I want to communicate? How do I portray the chosen message? How do I bring together the vessel and animal sculpture to form a graceful work of art? Do I care if it’s functional/ does it matter if the function is obvious? How detailed do I want to make a piece in regards to how that might determine it’s marketability/price?
6. Do you have a quote that’s important to you displayed in your studio? If so, what is it?
I don’t have a quote displayed. However, the Quaker saying of “Way Opens” often reminds me to keep moving forward on the rocky path of an artist career.
7. Which artist (living or not) would you most like to invite for dinner? What would you serve?
While somewhat predictable, I’ve always loved the work of Andy Goldsworthy (b. 1956). A British sculptor and environmentalist who creates site specific installations using natural materials from the surrounding landscape. I find his work visually and conceptually inspiring, timeless, and I bet he would be a fascinating person to have a conversation with!
Depends on the season, if it were summer I would make eggplant parmesan using fresh eggplant and tomatoes, but in winter possibly a hearty venison stew with a wintery green salad and delicious home made bread.
8. What has been your most unusual request for your art?
Hmm, well I often have people asking me if I make specific animals (their favorite ones of course) such as giraffe, or their pets. But the strangest might have been a friend who requested a shaving scuttle with a rat on top. I pulled it off to be functional and have a rat, but certainly did not charge enough for the level of customized design, haha.
9. What music are you listening to these days?
A whole variety of stuff. Today I was listening to the classics, Bob Marley and Joni Mitchell while working. Some recent discoveries include a band called The Fox and Bear, and Asgeir. I often fall back on folk and indie music.
10. What is on your nightstand?
I don’t technically have a nightstand, because my bed is a loft in a small apartment. But sitting beside my bed is the literary magazine Orion, a writing journal, and the book, A Fearless Heart by Thupten Jinpa.
“Where I was born and still call home is my family’s organic farm in Tidewater Virginia, where daily interactions with plants and animals cause a sense of wonder and connection to the landscape. My current work draws on this personal story of belonging, while responding to an increasing need for respect and consideration of the natural environment and the species who are inhabitants. In my practice, I sculpt realistic animals who correspond and integrate with vessels and altered forms.
Each animal is presented in a position of honor and integrity, aiming to invoke an introspective response while the corresponding vessel serves as a stage and invites human interaction. Using porcelain and stoneware, each piece is wheel thrown, altered, sculpted and carved. Firing in both electric and wood kilns, I attempt to accentuate qualities of preciousness through glaze application or spontaneity of ash and flame.”
About Katherine
Katherine’s ceramic forms draw inspiration from growing up on a farm in Tidewater Virginia. Where her keen observation of the natural world became intrinsic to creating animal themed vessels. Katherine discovered ceramics at age eleven before apprenticing with a potter in high school and later developing her practice during completion of a Bachelor of Arts degree from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC.
Katherine worked as studio technician after graduation at Guilford before establishing a home studio on her family’s farm in Virginia. In 2016-17, Katherine enjoyed a 6 month artist residency at Starworks Clay studio in Star, NC, where she focused on the wood kiln as a primary firing method.
Katherine employs her extensive training in wheel throwing and functional ceramics to create her forms, adding animal figures through techniques of sculpting and carving. She currently works out of her home studio in VA, and often travels back to NC to participate in wood firings.