Katherine Taylor

I’ve been working with porcelain for about 28 years, and I am still amazed by its luminosity, strength, and variability. I was lucky enough to be able to make sculptures and pots with locally available porcelains in Taiwan and in Norway. I learned so much about the histories, limitations, and rewards of this material that I am now hooked for life. When I started running my studio, I began making my own porcelain, which is a translucent, fully vitrified clay, that can be thrown, hand built, or cast. I make a variety of work with this clay, and I believe that the character of the porcelain itself connects my different bodies of work. I have been making sculptures about the experience of Texas as a “place” for about 16 years. The two series that I am working on now are “Texas Land Body” and “Texas Doorstop.” Some of the sculptures are about specific places in Texas, and some of them are more about an emotional experience of being a body as part of a Texas landscape. Like my sculptures, my pots make references to the shapes of our bodies, some more literal than others. Some of my pots have glaze drawings of chickens on them, and at times, I think these are from a completely different planet. However, I really do think they also describe a portrait of a life in Texas, since so many Texas families share a history of farming, and hopefully smiling at silly chickens.