Here are some of my faves from our wicked awesome autumn jaunt to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The MFA recently opened a new wing for arts from the Americas, so many of my pix are from there, but as usual, what I’m drawn to are diverse materials, time periods, shapes, and styles, which will filter into my work in various ways over time. Enjoy!, and see more influence, pictorial posts here. (Hover your cursor over any pic, or click each, for more info.)

After a year of testing, I’ve settled on six new glaze colors, and have begun to debut the first of the three for 2012: Aqua, Pear* and Periwinkle. The new colors compliment and contrast with my current palette (mostly by being more vibrant). The image below shows three of my current palette (Honeycomb, Cornflower blue and Frost) nested in the three new colors (Pear, Periwinkle and Aqua). A new, light green is coming up soon!

* Name pondering for Pear/Yellow Pear is happening on my FB page here.

These are the twenty great artists I spent the first week of 2012 with at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (where I was an artist-in-residence 15 years ago!) for a Ceramic Surface Forum. Jason Burnett brought us all together to spend five days making, conversing and laughing (lots of laughing) side-by-side in the studio. It was a wonderful way to start the New Year. Thanks to everyone for a fun and inspiring week! Hover your cursor over each image to see its maker, and see the full list of artists in our group below.

Ceramic Surface Forum 2012: Amy Santoferraro, Martina Lantin, Kathy King, Julie Guyot, Andy Sloan Jackson, Chris Pickett, Justin Rothshank, Meredith Host, Magda Gluscek, Susan Feagin, Mark Errol, Matt Nolen, Jason Bigge Burnett, Pattie Chalmers, Chandra DeBuse, Tom Bartel, Kurt Anderson, Dustin Farnsworth, Ronan Kyle Peterson, Phil Haralam and me. Yay!

Fellow potter and blogger Ben Carter asked me to write a guest blog post for a new series he’s calling Turning Points, “where artists discuss the effect historical ceramics has had on their studio life.” I don’t post as often as I’d like on my own blog because my thoughts don’t flow as easily as a line of slip-trail, so it was fun to have a writing assignment about specific pots I enjoy, and how objects of influence inform my work. Check out my blog post here, and the latest from Ben and his studio in China by following his blog here! ~Thanks, Ben!

‘Honeysuckle mugs’ in-progress by Ben Carter.

I have some lovely new pots posted in my online shop and gallery store for the holiday season. I can’t compete with the big-box stores’ price cuts enabled by mark-ups or the online discounters’ free shipping deals with their bulk accounts, nor do I think you expect me to or actually consider those my competition. I can offer you handmade porcelain pots intended to bring a little elegance with a touch of merriment to your everyday. I do offer high quality ware and solid crafts[wo]manship. And I will send you a handwritten note of appreciation on one of my postcards when you do buy from me online, now for Cyber Monday and any day after. Everyday luxury and excellence year-round is what I have in stock. Thank you for perusing handmade and independent. XO KK

Coming up this weekend is my Holiday Studio Sale (November 5th & 6th), and while I would love for every single one of you to visit me here in north central Massachusetts, I realize that’s just not possible. Part of visiting an artist in their studio is to buy unique items and support handmade, but the other part is to see where the artist works every day. Those of you living beyond New England’s driving distance can always shop directly from my studio online in my Gallery Store and Pottery Shop. While it’s not exactly dropping by and sifting through pots on my shelves in person, it is the next best thing. For everyone (those who live within shipping range and those who live way beyond), I decided to circle my studio and shoot some of the tools and objects that surround me everyday to help fulfill in some small way the “glimpse behind the scenes” reason to visit.

Pictured above: The doormat that welcomes visitors to my space features big flowers, which remind me that spring will eventually come when there’s two feet of snow on the ground. An old tumbler of mine and three-tiered candy dish (from Ikea) hold my most-used tools and reside on a lazy susan in the right corner of my seven-foot work table. And, the large buckets of glaze, which live under my work table and are rolled out when I’m ready to pour and dip the glazes I mix.

My test tile board (test tiles are the ceramic artist’s paint chip) displays my current palette of satin and glossy glazes both alone and over stripes of underglaze colors, and new test colors. The chest-high foundation wall of my studio is a great shelf and keeper of many tools, including this decorative tea tin for my pens and markers, and collaborative ceramic basket by my grad professor Brad Schwieger and me for my brushes. A pound scale is a pretty typical tool in a potter’s studio (even of this era) for weighing amounts of clay, like the cups in the background that started as a pound and an eighth ball. I bought my scale at a re-sale shop when I lived in Detroit two years before having a studio in which to use it!

On my potter’s wheel sit my throwing tools in a bowl I made while working with studio potter John Glick (1997-98), and have used in multiple studios since. Also visible is the backrest I lean against while I stand to throw to keep my back healthy. Behind my wheel, à la laundry-hung-to-dry style, are lots of influence images. I couldn’t bring myself to tape or push-pin into my new walls yet, so this works and is fun for easy adding and subtracting. Other than me, the workhorse(s) of my studio are my ware boards. These 1″ x 12″ x 36″ boards are my shelves and allow me to tote pots (12 cups fit on one board, for example) from my wheel, to my studio shelving unit, to my kiln shelving unit and back again with relative ease, as well as make the shelving units themselves flexible for holding short items to tall.

Lastly, pictured left is a partial collection of influence objects I’ve picked up at antique stores, resale shops, and apparently anywhere else (like the plastic sandwich “triangle container” I think would make a great flower brick form).

That’s my studio at a glance! I hope some of you can swing by to see it in person and shop elegant for the holidays on Nov. 5th & 6th!

It’s the title I chose for my solo show at Plinth Gallery in Denver. I had jotted down the phrase months ago, but didn’t note the context. I believe I heard it on NPR in reference to something else, but it originated from the delightful 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street:

Look Doris, someday you’re going to find that your way of facing this realistic world just doesn’t work. And when you do, don’t overlook those lovely intangibles. You’ll discover those are the only things that are worthwhile.
~ John Payne as Fred Gailey

The “lovely intangibles” are something I think about when I’m working in my studio and reference about my pots when I teach: the importance of detail (different from decoration), which I define as anything from a slip-trail accent to the ribbed line that delineates a curve. Each of the aesthetic, technical and functional components that make up the whole of a pot —those big and little things that need to be there for me as the maker— may not be definable or even identifiable to the viewer, but if one or more is missing, the whole is no longer the same or as strong. I like the idea that it’s those lovely, imperceptible or even elusive intangibles that are crucial in the completion of a beautiful and useful object. We may not be aware of them when they are there, but somehow we are when they’re not.

The “important” details pictured, first row: 1. The negative space of a pitcher handle and crisp line that defines the handle itself. 2. The stripes that pop the stamped bunny silhouette, and slip-trailed tail. 3. The top flowing line of a cup handle that leads directly into the lip, and the lines the define the glossy interior and satin exterior. Second row: 4. The red stripes that wrap around and define planes and curves. 5. The cut-aways from a jar foot that create shadows and punctuate the softly squared corners of the body. 6. The thrown, altered and ribbed curves of a large pear jar.

We had a lovely, short vacation to Montréal this past week. A city that feels European and is less than six hours from our front door ~Oui! I’m pretty sure we walked every main thoroughfare and rue in Old Port, Le Village, Plateau Mont-Royal, St-Denis, Mile End, Chinatown and more. There is indeed a great and easy metro system, but you can’t see things if you can’t see things, so leisurely walking allowed us to take in the most of this stylish city. I should have many more pictures, but am pleased to share with you these few that give me wonderful ideas for color, line and detail. I see suggestions for cut-outs, color use, lip lines (tops of pots) and there is surely a flower vessel in those amazing tea cakes pour sûr!

Check into AKAR right here to see a wonderful online show of dessert plates, which include my own stripe-y yummies! Each of the 22 artists invited from all over the country sent two sets of four plates, one set of two and two singles. Sets are a rarity for me (more design planning involved plus extras required), but I had fun playing with the details to define and distinguish each. All but one of my plates sent are pictured above with different views below. The Dessert Plate, online exhibition at AKAR Design, 7/22-8/12.