"We call it a happy accident. I call it a technique." -k.b.

Ceramicist Kathy Butterly couldn't have come to MICA at a better time. This charming New york artist creates small scale sculpture with poreclain and commercial glazes. Beginning with the traditional form of a cast vessel, she alters the wet clay, bending and bulging it into abstract forms. Her vessels/forms are somewhat whimsical, often body-like, and luciously glazed. Though abstract, these little objects posess a true sense of life.

According to Butterly taking your time is the most luxurious thing one can do, so she takes her time adding intricate detail and texture in smart, sensitive ways. These forms are generally autobiographical, and have recently been political. One of the most fascinating things about Butterly's process is the tension between intentional and realized. Her scupltures appear very intentional through the careful detail and the high quality of finish. However, the form is intuitive and the meaning comes to her in a child-like manner. I use child-like not to be negative or condescending, but in that wonderful free sense of simply creating.

As she works, Butterly is influenced by her life and the world around her, realizing the meaning behind the work as she goes or after she is done. Although, it is not important to her that people realize the meaning, her little forms are what they are. Each object is within its own reality, which perhaps is the one of the most enchanting thing about them.

I had the privilege to speak with Butterly after her slide lecture. She is honest and insightful about her art and life. She also offered genuine advice freely.

Here's a small sampling of her work:

Yo.
Stuck in the Mud.
She Dynasty
Mask.
Flash.
Caught thinking.

The time couldn't have been better for me. I've been working intensely on my figures. Chasing some idea, I don't know what it is, but I haven't managed a process or product that deeply resonates with me and my ideas. So I've been toying with the idea of working less representationally and steering towards the abstract.

Butterly creates in a way so differently from my planned, researched figures. Her sculptures are alive caught in moments of their own. I could learn something.

She also talked about how she got her start by copying her heroine, and how it can take sometime to find an artist and process that strikes the right chord with you and your ideas. Butterly listened to my ideas, and essentially gave me permission to make the leap from my figures to abstract forms and to make bad and/or vulgar work. I know it might sound immature or ridiculously reliant on others opinions, but sometimes we inhibit ourselves and need the weight of an outside opinion to shake us up and encourage us. Maybe I can make this my kick in the pants.

I'm not sure I'm quite ready to abondon my figures yet. I don't feel like they are totally exhausted. However, I do feel I should get started on something different. Guess we'll have to see what I do.