Kathy Butterly with Stephanie Buhmann September 19, 2013 and

Kathy Butterly with Stephanie Buhmann
September 19, 2013 and June 16, 2014
East Village, New York
Color Hoard-r, 2013, clay, glaze, 5 x 3 3/4 x 3 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Tibor de Nagy, NY
Stephanie Buhmann: When first entering your studio, one passes shelves filled with an amazing collection of
glazes.
Kathy Butterly: I’m very organized when it comes to my glazes. In 2012, I received the Smithsonian American
Art Museum Contemporary Artist Award and I used much of that money to collect glazes. I like to collect glazes
that have been discontinued; due to their makeup those colors are exceptionally vibrant and complex. I bought
cabinets, put ads in papers and searched on ebay to collect vintage glazes. Because of that some people have been
just sending me their old discontinued glazes, very generous! Most of the vibrant colors have come from California.
Interestingly, historically, the East Coast has been a more a hi-fire earthy brown kinda place, but that’s changing. My
great love affair right now is testing all the glazes. I’m having the time of my life. I test them on earthenware shards,
which are not fired very high and on porcelain, which is. Many of the colors burn out and fade under high
temperature. In my process, I fire glazes over thirty times; it’s painting, you add layers. But you can’t see the
reaction of the glazes until they have been fired.
SB: Let’s look at this saturated work for example…
KB: …which is called “Color Hoard-r.” It has such an intense orange and red. There are layers and layers of glaze
here. The work almost functions as a straightforward self-portrait: a stockpiler of color. It’s the glaze that gives the
work so much of its content. It’s ugly and beautiful at the same time.
SB: While overall, the work is rather polished, its bottom is very textural. Organic growth comes, such as moss, or
the skin of a sea urchin.
1
KB: It is goopy and dry at the same time. It’s a surprise. Originally, the piece had been primarily yellow and it
continued to be for about fifteen firings. I thought it was done, but somehow also knew it wasn’t. Then, one day, I
decided that it needed some orange on top, so I put a big pile of orange and red together and swirled it. When I
took it out of the kiln I knew I was done.
SB: In addition to the fields of color, this piece also has this incredibly delicate string of pearls that accentuates the
form nor unlike a fine line-drawing. It must have been nerve-racking to not have color bleed into it from other
areas.
KB: It was, but I have been doing this for a very long time. And then, if it were to happen, I would deal with it.
Now this line adds a nice amount of tension.
SB: You often refer to painting when discussing your work. Did you in fact start out as a painter?
KB: I did, but clay chose me, so to speak. I need to work 3-dimensionally; I need a form to deal with, but I also
need to paint and to use color. Ceramics really allows me to have it all. However, when I go to a museum, I look
at the paintings first.
SB: Does your work start with a specific shape?
KB: It does. All the works here were born from the same form: a pint glass. When I started to cast forms, instead
of hand-building them, it gave me a lot more freedom. They lost their original ‘preciousness’ and I was willing to
take chances with them. The main body of each work is made of cast porcelain clay everything else is a different
clay material and is added over time and through many firings. The more I work the porcelain and the thinner I
carve it the more translucent it becomes; a luminosity develops which adds to the quality of the ‘aliveness’ that all
my works possess. I love porcelain - it is a very a lush, sexy material, but it is also demanding and unforgiving; I like
that part about it, too.
Dual 2, 2013, clay and glaze, 4 5/8 x 5 5/8 x 3 5/8 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Tibor de Nagy, NY
SB: The fact that each layer, component and glaze requires another firing, adds a significant time-lapse component
to your creative process. In that sense, you really don't know what the true result will be until you lift the work
out of the kiln.
2
KB: Yes, that's why there are so many firings. It really is the process, which determines the direction of where the
piece will go. I generally have a premise I’m starting with, but I don’t know where the form will go or end up. Each
work presents ‘problems’ to me, which I have to solve along the way. I add on or take off parts, sand down an
element half way, leave some texture, cover up part of a texture; these are all choices that I make as the piece
evolves. I have a very personal relationship with each piece; at moments I love the piece and what I’ve just done
to it and maybe I will regret the next move that I’ve made and decide I hate the piece at that moment. They are
always in flux until they tell me they are done. I’ve learned to allow their flaws to come through. Lately, I feel that
they are becoming more awkward and I am totally embracing it.
SB: You speak of your work very emotionally as if they were friends or children even. It must be challenging to
release them into the world if you have such an intimate relationship with each.
KB: I actually realized that when it comes to my work that I am ‘a-love-'em-and-leave-‘em’ kind of gal. There are
certain ones I have to keep, but usually I’m ready to move on by the time they are finished. However, I’m happy
to revisit them. When I see them in a show it really is like seeing family. It feels great and I’m happy to visit. But
ultimately I’m interested in the forward. I want to see where the work is going to go.
SB: Do you think in terms of series or chapters?
KB: The word “series” sounds like production to me. I don’t think of them that way. It’s a body of work rooted in
a specific time period. Each work represents a time capsule of sorts, reflecting the particular time when it was
made. The works don’t share a theme and are total individuals. But they capture some of what’s going on in my
world and the outside world. I listen to public radio to keep up with world events in my studio. This gets infused
into my works, along with music, what’s going on outside my window, what’s going on in my personal world…it all
goes into the work. In that sense my work embodies my life during the specific period of their origin. Right now,
there is a lot of green in my work, the color of growth, but also of camouflage and war, for example. It’s
complicated.
Pirette, 2013, clay and glaze, 4 5/8 x 4 1/2 x 3 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Tibor de Nagy, NY
3
SB: The implication of war and devastation is particularly interesting as your material comes with such an ingrained
sense of delicacy and fragility. One does not necessarily look at your work while associating destruction.
KB: I never think consciously of that but the pieces are very aggressive in their own way. Nevertheless, they are
also delicate and you feel that you need to take care of them. They are precious, but they are also tough. Isn’t that
a reflection of life as we know it now? Or at least of how I feel personally: tough but also fragile.
SB: In that sense they demand a lot of the viewer; they are both structurally and emotionally complicated.
KB: Let's take this piece “Pirette” for example, which to me is very funny and self-assured. I almost did not make
this piece. I made the form and thought that it was somewhat boring in a “been there and done that” kind of way.
Now I look at it and think: “What was I crazy?" I just decided to use colors on it in a way that I never had, just to
throw myself off. I started with pink inside and green outside. It sounds simple when I describe it this way, but
usually I start with one color as a canvas. So this color duality put me in an uncomfortable situation. I then thought
of the Anasazis, an Ancient Pueblo people of the Southwest, who built their homes in cliff dwellings, and I began
to make these little cliff dwellings in the piece. But I found that they were not working and I took the drill and took
them off. I liked seeing the remnants however and left them. And then I realized that this remnant of a form was
holding a painting. The overall form is so fluid and it felt like an ocean to me. So I started painting what I
considered to be a seascape, leaving parts of an ugly avocado green and parts that look like waves crashing. You
would never know it, but that’s what was going on in my mind. I go on ‘journeys’ as I work…
SB: The viewer cannot point towards such specifics of course but one does get a strong sense that what we
observe is the manifestation of an inner life. There is an unzipped quality in this particular work as if part of a
hidden truth was spilling out.
KB: I don’t intend on anyone understanding what goes on in my mind as I work and I don’t intend on the piece
having any real specific meaning in the end, because truly, they are not specific, they are a conglomeration of ideas,
events, processes built up over a matter of time. They sum up my time making them and somehow in the end
they do tell that story. In the case of “Pirette”, you are looking at the inner life of a painting (that in reality is an
object); it’s like looking behind a façade, because that’s what I was focused on – on what was inside the painting,
the feeling of the painting, and on what does it feels like to BE the seascape painting?
SB: It must be scary to take a physical part or a whole section of the work off, especially when you don’t know
where it’s going next and you are far along, having already invested months of work.
KB: It’s exciting. I have a bullshit detector that goes off when I feel too comfortable. I need to throw myself off
constantly. It may be the subtle shifts that do it for me. When one looks at my shows one may think: “Yes, this is
Kathy’s work, because she works small scale, etc.”, but for me the shift between the last two shows was personally
huge. That's because I have all these news colors I am working with and that's a big shift and it’s exciting. One of
the most crucial things I had to figure out was how color works. So, to me, shifts don’t need to be dramatically
different like an obvious shift in scale, but could be about the shift in how I approach handling the colors or
textures in a piece.
SB: Some of your works - even though they are abstract - seem to reference human qualities, facial features or
better, facial expressions and mimicking, for example. I frequently think of animated mouths for example.
4
KB: In several of these works I was indeed really into the mouth of the piece. They are like Rorschach’s to me. I
need to find something that pulls me into the form and mouths seem to have taken my interest this time around.
One of these works broke when I put it in the kiln, destroying the smile. Instead of fixing it, I decided to fire it as is
and it came out with this half smile – a broken smile and a void. For the next firing I added these very bizarre
tendrils. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it worked. So, by accidentally breaking the form I was taken to a place
that was unexpected, this is very satisfying.
SB: It is as if the work always has a life of its own – from the start and throughout the creative process.
KB: Right. If I could be the artist I wanted to be, I would be a minimalist like Fred Sandback or an abstract
expressionist like Joan Mitchell, I love their work! But I am a maximalist. I add.
Change Maker, 2013, clay and glaze, 4 1/2 x 4 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Tibor de Nagy, NY
SB: It is interesting how little our eyes require in order to interpret something as figurative. Let’s take “Change
Maker”, for example, a piece with a strong curve that could easily read as a bent back.
KB: True. This work seems like a funny piece at first. But because it is bending over, it creates this dynamic of
something very intense happening to it. There is this duality – intensity and humor all conveyed through form and
color and what we associate with it.
SB: Dualisms are important to you.
KB: Yes. For example, another piece is about being loud and silent at the same time. Having an open mouth,
yelling something, and having a closed mouth at the same time.
SB: As a result, we project a human quality onto the work – physically and emotionally. Let’s talk about your
pedestals, which are integrated into the overall form.
5
Loud Silence, 2014 clay and glaze 4 3/4 x 4 3/4 x 4 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Tibor de Nagy, NY
KB: Early on, I didn’t use them. However, I wanted to raise the pieces up and activate them, but I didn’t know
how. Then, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and I saw a collection of Chinese Scholar Rocks. When I
saw the bases I thought: “Here we go”. I started incorporating the lift in them. Over the years I considered why I
keep doing this. Ever so often I don’t and the pieces feel heavier and in those cases they need that. It was Leah
Ollman, who writes for the Los Angles Times and Art in America, who pointed out to me that by making the
pedestals be a part of the work, I am making a statement that their personalities are to be displayed. So the bases
are very important. They are not just bases but they are part of the psychology of the pieces. Understanding this
really clarified their necessity to me. Ken Price and Ron Nagle have also used the pedestal in parts of their work. I
have always admired them and their work.
SB: The same is true for Brancusi of course. Have you met Price and Nagle?
KB: Yes, several times, although I wish I would have gotten to know them better. I spent significant time on the
West Coast. I went to UC Davis and attended a two-year grad program. I got to study with Bob Arneson out
there along with some other fantastic artists. I feel like Arneson and I have a kindred spirit going on in our work,
like we have something to prove. Our ways are quite different, but we both talk about serious issues with humor.
I think it’s important to talk about politics for example. But my work is cryptic of course.
SB: But one nevertheless senses this depth and it prevents your work from being decorative. Your sculptures
seem imbued with content. They are vessels that promise to hold mysteries one wants to explore.
KB: Thank you. I’m hoping that they are not being overlooked because they are small and precious. I am quietly
fighting against that. I actually think that their scale and the amount of attention I give to them is a big part of their
power.
SB: As we become bombarded with more and more information, we might turn away from the bombastic
gesture and rediscover the small object.
KB: One thing I totally embrace in my work is the fact that although I live in this great big city, I can retreat to my
studio and focus all day on making tiny pearls, for example. It seems extravagant and luxurious and so opposite
from what seems to be expected at this time. I am a slow worker and I don’t have assistants. I get to go to my
6
own studio, to practice my own work, to work at a slow pace, oh, I love it. I don’t want to work big. This seems
to be the scale for me. These works might be physically small, but I enter them and they become a universe to
me. In that sense they are huge. My slightly larger pieces seem to become more about landscapes than figuration.
Their concerns are different, they take up a different kind of space – one that is more present in our world.
SB: How do you start your day in the studio? You have a few works in progress lined up here.
KB: First, I just look and take it in. The works that are in progress are close at hand. I look at them and then I see
what needs to be done. I’m always hoping to have a task to do like carving beads for a necklace because that is a
good ‘in’ to the studio mindset, but usually that’s not the case so I just have to look and think; hopefully, I will have
that Eureka moment, but really I just have to figure out the next move or sometimes cast a new form. Smoothing
out a form is also a nice ‘in’ to the work. I may look at a piece and decide whether or not to accentuate or hide a
‘flaw’.
SB: Hiding the flaws…
KB: I don’t always fix them. Often I embrace the flaws because they are self-portraits of sorts. I also have to trust
that when something is simple it can be done. I have a tendency to overdo things.
SB: How do you deal with that? Do you put the work away for a while?
KB: Totally. I have to and then there may be the big pay off when I rediscover it! I may recognize what needs to
happen next. There really are endless possibilities. You would think that casting a pint glass over and over would
be tiring but there can be so much variety. I haven’t exhausted them yet and maybe I never will - especially now
that I have a huge world of colors to explore.
SB: Are there distinct phases in your work?
KB: Yes. In fact, I realized that a few years ago, when taking a good look at my overall body of work. There was
the phase when I was falling in love and the phase when I was having kids and then, there was 9/11. What I am
getting at is that the work changed over the years. First, it was very sexy, and then it centered on the pregnant
belly, after 9/11 the works were all about the head, so heavy and hard to lift. After that my work focused on
landscape or body as landscape. My current work is again, very figurative.
SB: Do you see a difference in the works that originate in the city and those coming about in Maine, where you
spend a lot of time in the summer?
KB: Yes, there is a difference. In New York, I have a set routine. In Maine, time is more fluid. In Maine, I get to the
studio every day, but it is more relaxed. I also bring the unfinished works from New York to work on, but they
look different up there. For example I brought one colorful work up to Maine that wasn’t quite working for me. I
saw it differently there and I decided to cover it all in white and to allow the colors underneath to seep through.
The piece started a new journey and it worked for me. I’m not sure if I would have covered it in white if it never
left Manhattan. What I discovered in Maine with this piece in particular was that to be colorful, a piece
doesn’t necessarily have to be covered in color. Color can happen and creep into a piece in less overt ways. I have
my own studio in Maine surrounded by a meadow. It’s a great escape. It clears my head. In New York, my mind
gets very full with information and in Maine I can filter it.
7