ARTIST AT WORK
by Sarah Katz
I moved out of my old studio on Union Square about five years ago. I had been there 28 years.
At first, I worked in a room at the back of the house, but it was small and had lots of windows and not much privacy, so this year, I built a new studio, in the old barn behind the house.
I wanted to work with models again. I’ve worked with models most of my creative life, and I enjoy the collaboration. Sometimes the sculptures I make are nude and sometimes they’re clothed, so the women who pose for me may do either.
The new studio has a porch so I can work outside in the warm weather and I can do any grinding or use of chemicals in fresh air.
Interior with stand for the model, stand for my sculpture and in the back is the kiln where I fire the work. Upstairs there is a loft for finished work.
When I was a young art student, I turned to figurative work as a way of telling stories and celebrating life. I had a degree in Ceramics from RIT and a degree in sculpture from California College of the Arts. In California, I mostly made conceptual work, and it was a lot of fun and interesting, but I still loved making things and I missed that part. Also, my way of generating ideas is hands on. I may start with a material, or by finding a pose with the model. Sometimes, I just get an idea, fully formed and execute it, but mostly I work into things and ideas develop. I was very lucky to have two teachers who were students at the Bauhaus, Edith Reckendorf who taught me art history and weaving when I was in high school, and Franz Wildenheim who taught me ceramics at The School For American Craftsmen at RIT. They both had a wonderful grasp of art and craft and a deep understanding of process and meaning in art. I was also influenced by the work I did in California. Even though my work is representational it has maintained a conceptual element.
In California, I also encountered the early comics of R. Crumb. They were hilarious and fearless and filthy. I loved them, and they influenced me to be humorous and bold. In Philadelphia, I heard Alice Neel speak at Tyler. She also influenced me with her humanity and fascination with personality.
My core interests haven’t changed since I was a young artist. I have not changed as fashion in art has changed, I’ve gone deeper.
When I was still a student, I went to the Barnes Foundation. There was a terrific collection of art there, and many nudes and paintings of young women. I couldn’t help noticing that none of them were painted by women. As a matter of fact, there were no paintings by women at all in the collection, and I know there were very able women painters working at the time Barnes was collecting.
This was in the early 1970s, and my young feminist soul was appalled. I was not entirely comfortable working alone in my studio with male models, and I decided that over the next few years I would work with female models exclusively. At first, they were subjects, but as I went on, I began to identify with them, and the work became a collaboration.
I don’t always work with models, sometimes I construct figures from memory and knowledge, and sometimes I work more abstractly. In the last few years, I’ve done a series that combined hand thrown form with modeled forms.
From my last show, left, a Sentinel Figure of combined forms, and right, Burlesque.
I rarely work in bronze. I have, but it is expensive and I can’t control the whole process. This limits me to poses the clay can hold by itself, but it also opens me to color. I glaze my work. Most pieces are fired three times. First there is a bisque firing, then a glaze firing where most of the color is applied, and finally an overglaze firing where I paint details.
I start with a support for the clay. If it’s a large piece I may use plumbing pipe to go up the middle and rough out the form with paper. Then I’ll cover that with clay slabs, and when they’re hard enough I can begin to model on top of them.
Torso formed on a pole. Sometimes I incorporate other materials into the sculpture. This one has feathers and is finished with encaustic.
For a small piece, I can usually use sticks to support the clay and take them out as the clay hardens.
When you work with clay it’s important to understand timing. Some things can be done when it’s soft, other procedures when it’s set up a bit, or leather-hard, or dry. Once it’s fired, it’s all surface work.
After the modeling is done, I may cut the finished piece open to hollow it out. You want the clay wall to be fairly even in thickness. With some of the pieces, I can turn them over and remove any items I’ve used for an armature and hollow them out from the bottom.
The last thing I do, after the work is fired and glazed, is to glue a piece of felt on the bottom to keep it from scratching the surface it may inhabit.
Editor’s Note:
Sarah Katz, the recently “retired” Co-Editor of this magazine, has exhibited widely across the New York region and is celebrated for her insightful exploration of women’s experiences in her art. Her most recent work was on view in ‘Between Form and Feeling’, June 13 -29, 2025, at the Wired Gallery in High Falls NY. www.thewiredgallery.com.
Please visit this link for a video from Sarah’s recent show at the Wired Gallery in High Falls NY. Sarah thanks Sevan Melikyan “for his sensitivity in displaying the work and the opportunity to show there.”.
