egotistical project of an artist who want to offer up something of their fame to a people, a community, a place. Malone wants the people, the community, the place involved in the actual creation. Brilliant!
Public Works
Consider a few examples of Malone’s public projects: the wall of a thousand stories, and story wall.
The Wall of a Thousand Stories
The Royal Jubilee Public Library in Brighton commissioned “The Wall of a Thousand Stories” for its Children’s Reading Room. The design, incorporating 90 ceramic pieces
positioned on a large, deep blue wall, was inspired by bedtime stories she created with her daughter, Scarlet. As Malone has been quoted saying: “We make up tales by taking three random things and weaving a story together that will include these three elements.” Completed in 2005, the work is enjoyed by children, families, and others to enhance storytelling.
The Story Telling Wall
The Story Telling Wall was a 2012 collaboration between EPR Architects, Kate Malone, and
members of the local community in Brighton.
The wall, which comprises four sections positioned on the street level of the American Express Building, was designed to prompt improvised story telling by the local community. The local community was, in fact, intimately involved in the creative process, which ultimately produced 15,000 tiles for the wall. Tiles were comprised of silhouettes, fossils, and stamps created by members of the community which were then fired by Malone’s staff and placed on the wall by contractors (see photos).
This sense of wonder and curiosity, and the desire to engage others in education and her craft, has long been a trademark of Kate’s. For example, in a 2008 interview with Ceramics Review (234, November/December 2008), Malone said:
If there had not been a little pottery department under the concrete E Block stairs of the large Henbury Comprehensive School … with a handsome dusty pottery teacher … I might never have looked through that clay-smeared window
at the age of twelve and felt that immediate magnetic interest in the mysterious jars of powders on the shelves.
It is also the reason why Kate continues to support and be involved with education
Left:
Mr. & Mrs. Tutti Atomic
Video Courtesy of:
William Taylor
&
Kate Malone
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