Artist Bio

Katherine has always been a maker. She began her creative life with flowers as a floral designer and dabbled in basket weaving, ceramics and pottery, and fiber crafts.

Katherine creates wire sculpture designed to draw attention to form, light, and shadow. The shapes invite exploration of texture and depth. She is inspired by the the curves, dips, distances or closeness, of the landscapes that surround the Pacific Northwest. Her work is also influenced by natural elements like the power of the wind, the pathways of rain, or the detours tree roots take along the forest floor. Each sculpture inspires the next.

She has been looping wire since 2007 when she learned the technique in a workshop during a show of Ruth Asawa’s art at the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles. Commissions dominated her art making for many years and she is always happy to create based on an art lover’s specs. However, vital to her creative nature, is welcoming imperfection and to remain open to learning, communicating, and contributing as an art maker.

In recent years, Katherine followed a desire to incorporate natural fibers into her sculptures. This has led to concentrated efforts to learn the many aspects of basketry art. She is learning and practicing weaving with willow, tree bark including cedar, willow, and maple. As she discovers which fibers weave well, she is experimenting with  day lily, iris, and daffodil leaves, dandelion stems, and honeysuckle vine - all of which she intentionally grows in her gardens (except for the dandelions).

Katherine works out of her backyard studio in Tacoma, WAsurrounded by ever evolving flower gardens with her sweet canine companion, Olive, a Catahoula/Chesapeake mix by her side, and of course two cats in the yard.

From The Country to the City

In May 2018, I moved back to the city I fell in love with when I first arrived in Washington state. Tacoma, WA is a funky city/town with pockets of surprise scattered all about. I love that I can see Mount Rainier from so many places. I can take walks through the old growth forest of Point Defiance Park, gaze out onto Commencement Bay with the Olympic Mountains cutting along the horizon, drop downtown for an art show at the Tacoma Art Museum or the Museum of Glass or any one of the independently owned art galleries. Then there’s the live theater and music, antique row with it’s array of unique shops, restaurants…the list goes on. Best of all, I have family here.

My little house with its little yard and garage turned into an art studio is perfect for me, my dog Walter, and my two cats, Sunny and Eddie. I was maintaining an entire acre at my former house in Snoqualmie. It had been a constant fight for my time between it an my art making. I do miss the star-lit nights, the high-ceilings of the art studio, the night quiet, and the easy forest hikes. But Tacoma won my heart years ago and I seem to find ways to get out into the forest or spend time along the coast.

More to come!

Love for Asawa, Art and Gardens

I'm fortunate to have had the opportunity to see Ruth Asawa's work at a time when I was looking for a way to break out from the wire wrapping and wire crochet I was using to make jewelry to sell at local flea markets and street fairs in Los Angeles. Those days seem like a lifetime ago now that I've settled into a house in the rural countryside of the Pacific Northwest. 

My home is surrounded by beauty as are most places I'm sure. The crevice sliced face of Mt. Si looms just to the east. I can catch just a glimpse of it's jagged top from the backyard, through a gap in the tall fir trees. The roar of Tokul Creek lifts up from the gulch down below as it hurls toward it's flow partner, the Snoqualmie River. The Snoqualmie Falls - just 1.8 miles from my house - sends a bit of a more dull roar up from the distance. I can especially hear it at night. 

Since moving here in 2009, I've planted an assortment of fruit trees, berries, flowering shrubs, evergreen and deciduous trees, flowers that bloom year after year, bamboo, honeysuckle...the list goes on and on. This past summer I spent many days toiling in the front yard where I installed a slice of a garden. Looking out at it today it's hard to envision what it will look like in two or four or five years. The young himalayan honeysuckle, the magnolia trees, mock orange, lilacs, hostas, lilies, iris, daffodils and tulips will fill that space with colors, textures and an abundance of birds, bees and butterflies and of course the dragonflies that light off from the neighboring pond.

I'm grateful I don't have to choose between gardening and art. I can divide my time between both loves allowing each to inspire the other.

The Beginning

In 2007, The Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles held an exhibition of sculptures. They used terms like crocheted and looped to describe the work. At the time, I was in my third year living in Los Angeles. I had been crocheting wire and beads into necklaces and bracelets and selling them at local craft fairs and the Melrose Trading Post (a flea market near Hollywood). I was a vintage goods dealer as well as held a full-time job.  

I had a desire to use wire to make things bigger - outside the realm of body adornment. I'd looked for that "thing" in garden art, wall displays and nothing triggered my inspiration. I was eager to see these wire sculptures. I was not aware of Ruth Asawa and her work. I lived just a few miles from Little Tokyo in LA where the museum is located. 

The JANM's press release about the show says this:

"Asawa's sculptures inhabit the room with an alert, yet mysterious, stillness that can be associated with meditation. Viewers who have been chatting before entering the installation frequently stop in stunned silence, suddenly more aware in the midst of these objects that share an ineffable affinity."

This describes my reaction with the only difference is I wanted to know how she constructed the sculptures. Desperately wanted to know. On the way out the door there was a small sign that said "Workshop with the Artist"....and a date. So I showed up the next day for the workshop only to learn it was the following weekend. My enthusiasm trumped my reading comprehension in that moment. So the next Saturday Ruth Asawa's daughter led a class of about 10 people in the technique of looping one loop inside of another and inside of another...and on and on.

I took to it immediately. It felt like my creative brain and heart had found a spark and I've been creating sculptures ever since. With each one I try to honor the spirit of generosity Ruth Asawa so kindly extended by sharing her technique and I try to find my own voice. For me it comes slowly. The technique naturally lends itself to shapes that often seem to mimic Asawa's. But I strive for imperfection. Someone whose intentions were not kindness told me my work looks like it's had the wind knocked out of it. I thanked him. I have lived through some experiences that feel like a powerful wind has gusted through me, so to have it translated through my art is a high compliment. This unsolicited critique felt like an injury but turned out to be a gift. 

That's enough for now. Thank you for reading if you've made it this far.