Echoes of Alchemy, Kathy Kearns, October 2024
This work is a reflection of my passion for ancient cultures and our human connection with past civilizations. Our emotions, desires, and reactions are unchanged despite the advances in technology and knowledge. My sculptures represent the timeless states of human beings in the same way that ancient myths mirror our past and hold relevance for our current moment.
My sculptures are an extension of my work as a potter, and contain the same figurative elements of pottery such as the belly, shoulder, foot, and lip. Human and animal bodies become vessels and containers of consciousness.
Travels in Greece and my time working at the Mudhouse Art Residency in Crete led to this body of new work. While in Crete I created small figurines with local clay and upon returning to my California studio used them as models for larger scale sculptures. These were fired in a 16 foot long anagama style wood kiln with a crew of artists at Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology in Northern California. Wood firing is a transformational process that involves stoking the kiln with pine and oak for eight days and nights, reaching high temperatures of 2400 degrees F. This laborious process creates surfaces of melted wood ash glaze, flashing marks from the flame and gritty textures from the coal bed. I love the earthy quality and variation of these surfaces that narrate a continuum of time and place.
Artist’s Bio:
Kathy Kearns is a ceramic artist living and working in her studio in Crockett, California. She received a BFA in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA in ceramics and sculpture from the University of Colorado. She established Crockett Pottery in 1994, and continues to make functional pottery that is sold online at https://www.crockettpottery.com/ and in select galleries. She also enjoys teaching ceramics at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill and Red Ox Clay Studio in Concord.
Every summer she travels to Greece, to visit her ancestral home in the Peloponnese, and to create art at the Mudhouse Art Residency in a small village in the mountains of Crete. Her other interests include studying modern Greek and playing the accordion. For more about her process and observations, follow her on Instagram @kupper11, and visit her website: https://www.crockettpottery.com/