ceramic studios. The objective is that assistants learn in my studios, and this strengthens their position. I'd love to pay them more, but it’s hard these days with costs rising. All the same, I feel good that I provide a solid base for them.
Because of our mutual interest and support, we have developed strong relationships where my assistants can come to me and tell me if they need more work hours. And then, I will call on them when I am extremely busy. It does get complex at times, but we rub along and it seems to work. Community is, after all, a huge part of my life. I aim to play a stable, kind role in my work community. In return, I am humbled by the level of focus and care my team input to our days together."
Honing in on the concept of dignity across the day would provide a vehicle to better understand Kate and her art more generally.
Kate Malone – The Ceramicist
Kate Malone is one of the United Kingdom’s leading ceramic artists, having worked in the medium for more than 30 years. Kate’s hand-made pots and intricately ornamented sculptures both large and small are highly unique. Their unmistakable style stems from her interest and observations of Nature and from her deep research into the chemistry and application of glazes.
This interest in Nature, shape, and form has been with Malone since her college days. Viewing her archives, Kate pointed to several works from her college days that her mother recently returned to her. One example is built around a cube, upon which representations of natural things have been applied. Kate says it is a method and approach that defines her today:
taking shapes and forms and “sticking” things onto them – fruit, nuts, berries, crystals, etc.
It should thus come as no surprise that inspiration, for Malone, arises from many things, but “the centre of it is Nature, and the different aspects of nature in the figurative sense and the cosmic sense” (by cosmic sense, she means Nature “on an energetic scientific
and microscopic level”). But equally, Malone finds inspiration in travel: some 30 or more trips to India, for example, have provided inspirations in the abstract, humanitarian, and literal sense. And one cannot help but remember that Kate is an artist, so she is always “looking everywhere, all the time, for a mental logging of a curve or surface, colour way or detail.”
Where else does Malone find Inspiration? She reads ceramic books generally, as well as the history of ceramics or technical essays. She has also been enjoying the catalogue from the Kettle's Yard exhibition of Lucie Rie. Most recently, Kate has been reading a new book on German ceramic stoves – using Google translate!
But it is not just her interest in Nature and the history of ceramics that distinguishes Kate, it is also her application of glazes, built from years of research and experimentation, that sets Malone apart. The colors, the texture, the similarities with what you might see in items
from Nature – whether mica or water or light – draw you into each piece, causing one to immediately say, “how beautiful, it looks just
Community is, after all, a huge part of my life. I aim to play a stable, kind role in my work community. In return, I am humbled by the level of focus and care my team input to our days together.
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