Mary Kay Botkins

Clay: Folded Forms with Lids

Course Description
In this class we will discuss design of lidded containers, focusing on working with soft slabs in creating soft, fluid, organic forms, and architectural stacked forms. Templates will be used to create folded hollow handles and knobs. We will experiment with texture and pattern as decoration. Work will be bisque fired only.

Artist's Biography
Mary Kay Botkins has a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She has taught classes at Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts and John C. Campbell Folk School. Her work has been published and exhibited nationally. She maintains a studio in East Dundee, Illinois.

Artist's Statement
I am interested in folds, edges, and other subtleties that happen when I work with clay. Folds add a soft contrast to the crispness of an edge and surrender to shadow and light. The thinness of the slab can buckle under its weight or defy gravity. Stacked pieces nestle into architectural forms while other pieces are puffy containers of air. Keeping the forms simple, my work is about material, line, and space.

Pottery allows me to form ideas about the content of an object and still explore material and surface. I think about how food is contained in the dish, how pots are stacked in the cupboard, or how ware can be arranged on a table. A small pot gives me a place to lay my car keys.

Ultimately, my pots are small sculptures for domestic life.