Support your favorite college newsroom with a gift! We’re offering the first 200 donors who make a gift of $44 or more a copy of the book published by The D.O. chronicling the men’s basketball team’s 2002-03 season. Donate today and help us win College Media Madness.

Ceramicist Katie Stone spent their entire first year of college working on a life-sized bust of a zebra.

When their professor walked into their studio space, he witnessed Stone sitting eye to eye with the zebra, engrossed in the details of the massive sculpture. This, Stone said, was the moment they realized just how much they love clay.

“I couldn’t even tell there were people in the room. I didn’t leave that whole day,” said Stone, now a graduate student at Syracuse University. “And (my professor) just saw how enamored I was.”

That passion reached a national audience last week, as three of Stone’s sculptures were on display at the annual National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts conference in Cincinnati. NCECA featured panels, demonstrations, critiques, discussions and exhibitions, has roughly 4,000 members across more than 20 countries and reaches thousands of other artists and supporters at its annual conference.

Every show at NCECA is extremely competitive, said Peter Beasecker, the coordinator of the ceramics program at SU. He juried two exhibitions in years prior, and said there were a large volume of submissions for each. He said it’s a great accomplishment for Stone to have three pieces exhibited at the conference.

“It’s a rigorous process, and the competition is robust,” Beasecker said. “It’s just getting more and more, because ceramics programs in general are getting stronger and stronger.”

Stone originally wanted to be a veterinarian. They grew up on a farm, and were a self-proclaimed “horse girl.” But after following a vet tech around for a day — which consisted of castrating a goat and subsequently having to hold the animal’s testicles — Stone decided it may be time to pursue their other passion of art.

But Stone didn’t settle on ceramics just yet. Attending Maryland Institute College of Art in 2010, they decided to major in illustration. While their professor was incredible, they said, Stone realized they just didn’t have a gift for this artistic discipline.

“(My professor) came over and he was like, ‘Katie, you’re terrible at this,’” Stone said, laughing. “And I was crying, and I was like, ‘I know. We have a crisis.’”

Art and creation still captivated Stone, though, so they turned to three-dimensional methods. Stone spent much of their first year of college building pieces out of random objects, but materials like wood and metal were too “geometric” to achieve their vision, so finally, they discovered clay.

“I just absolutely fell in love with it and never looked back,” Stone said.

Stone appreciates how clay leaves room for their other “loves” of painting and drawing. It’s universal, and given its natural properties, clay provides a special connection to the Earth, Stone said.

They further embraced their love for ceramics when they moved to Pittsburgh to teach at a community studio.

That local studio, which served thousands of people each year, is where they grew fond of teaching ceramics, Stone said. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused them to lose their job at that studio, Stone took came to SU in hopes of teaching more as they continued their own art.

Not all clay is created equal, they said. Stone opts for a clay with red, terracotta tones over a white porcelain. They said it brings a colorful foundation to the piece, and it’s less tedious, because they don’t have to cover every single inch of a sculpture. With porcelain, the vast range of options can be endless and thus overwhelming, Stone said.

There’s a few drawbacks to this artistic choice, though.

“Everyone in my life accepts that if they let me borrow things, they’re going to come back (stained) red,” Stone said.

Stone sometimes incorporates fibers through flocking to add a fuzzy texture, and to surprise the viewer, they said. In addition to the red clay base, Stone also employs underglazes to add bright pops of color — something they said mirrors common themes in their work.

Stone’s ceramics address the concept of gender, and what it means to be a woman. When they came to SU for their master’s of fine arts degree, Stone felt it was a safe place to come out as queer and nonbinary. But Stone still feels very connected to the idea of womanhood.

“Now that I feel like I’m on a different side of ‘woman,’ as a nonbinary person, I still hold the name, the idea and the people who are ‘woman’ really tenderly, and I don’t want to pull myself away from that,” Stone said. “I feel very protective.”

Stone said as a child, the statement “I’m not like other girls” was something to be proud of, but now they look back on those words as a disservice to the female identity. One of their pieces that unpacks this concept, entitled “(Do) Not Like Other Girls,” depicts two girls standing back to back, one dressed as a ballerina and the other as a cowgirl, capturing the range of presentations of being a girl. There’s both sorrow and beauty in being a woman, Stone said.

This new work will be on view at #nceca2023 in the show, We Gather Each Other Up, hosted by @adcfineart. Thanks to the lovely people @mk.noonan.art and @woodfirebarbie78 for including me!
.
.
When I came out as queer, I stopped apologizing. It had become a reactionary response, like a jerk of the knee, in most of my daily conversations. Some thirty-times-a-day.
.
Sorry I’m in the way
Sorry I wasn’t accessible when you needed me
Sorry I feel uncomfortable
Sorry you can’t have me
Touch me
Put your finger prints all over me
Sorry I’m not smiling while you do it
.
This transition away from apologizing was never strategically planned. There was no New Years party where I vowed some sort of resolution while in a group of tipsy strangers. It was more of a growing awareness of how it would feel when an apology would pour out of me. I caught my breath being sucked through gritted teeth when it was inevitably accepted.
.
I’ve been learning how to own a space now that I am “out.” My body has only ever felt ephemeral. My ownership of it waxed and waned like the moon. I grew used to having a knot in my stomach all those times I didn’t feel like I belonged to myself.
.
Its powerful that in a land ever-proclaiming its freedom, we are so hungry to put laws on bodies. Last year, politicians introduced 550 abortion restrictions in 42 states. 37 were signed into law. That same year, 315 discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced. 29 were signed into law. We are two months into 2023 with 340 anti-LGBTQ+ bills having been introduced. It’s hard to hear those numbers and believe there could ever be enough soot in the world to dust for all the fingerprints of people touching bodies that don’t belong to them

A photo posted by katiestoneceramics

This sculpture was on display in an exhibition called “Crip Clay,” a show that gave space to artists with disabilities.

Stone spent nearly their whole life seeking a diagnosis for their autoimmune disorder, and now with that diagnosis, Stone recognizes the privilege in being able to receive a diagnosis.

Shortly after they were diagnosed, Stone was hit by a drunk driver, resulting in three herniated discs in their spine and a fractured pelvis. It was “world-shattering,” they said. Stone’s surgeon told them that their condition wasn’t bad enough to warrant surgery just yet, so Stone stayed in a sort of limbo state, in constant pain.

Now, Stone said they don’t look disabled, “because I just hold it and carry it.” But this doesn’t discount the validity of the disability, they said. They appreciated NCECA dedicating a show to artists with disabilities.

“I look forward to being more than just what my body can physically do,” Stone said.

Stone also had a piece in the annual NCECA Juried Student Exhibition, entitled “Bred and Butter.” The sculpture depicts horses — colored by the red clay base — stacked on top of each other. Stone said this piece paid homage to their blue collar identity and roots as a “horse girl.”

They recalled beginning their undergraduate studies, when their professor told them to stop leaning into horses as a subject matter. So, Stone said, the logical alternative was cows. To their delight, other horse girls in the program did the same thing.

“I think there’s a very fun route from horse girl to gay cowboy,” Stone said, laughing.

Errol Willett, an associate professor of ceramics, walked into the student exhibition just as Stone was awarded the Outstanding Merit award for “Bred and Butter.”

“(Stone’s) work pays homage to ceramic artists who have come before them, while also pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in ceramics,” Willett said in an email.

Stone’s last piece at NCECA was in a show, “We Gather Each Other Up,” that aimed to explore the silent power of women. The sculpture, entitled “The Price on Power,” was finished just days before they traveled to Cincinnati for the conference.

“It went up to the last hours,” Beasecker said.

Stone had to be very exact about their time management of the work, Beasecker said. The kiln firings were planned months in advance. Stone incorporated luster — which in this piece added a metallic gold finish to parts of the sculpture — but this demanded an extra firing, something Beasecker said was a big risk.

“The kiln — that’s where the magic can happen, or where the destruction can happen,” he said.

Yet, Stone is proud of how “she” turned out — the sculpture is of an almost life-sized woman, leaning back in a chair with her legs crossed. The most powerful element of the work, Stone said, is the woman’s gaze, which points downward at a sharp angle. To meet her eyes, the viewer must kneel in front of her.

“I think that it unpacks a lot of the vulnerability of being a woman. It’s trying to flip that and make the viewer feel upset,” Stone said.

Angelica Starcovic is a second year MFA candidate in the same cohort as Stone. Together, Starcovic and Stone support each other creatively, bouncing ideas off each other and finding the core of what they’re trying to express through their work, Starcovic said.

Starcovic applauded Stone’s genuine love for their craft, and their “intense ability to persevere.”

“I’m always amazed that Katie can impart and preserve a work’s initial formation through every stage of the process, from the hand to the glaze and all the kiln visits in between,” Starcovic said in an email.

Both graduate school and ceramics, especially at the size Stone works in, aren’t easy, Starcovic said, but Stone approaches both with resiliency. Starcovic can’t wait to see where Stone and their work goes next, she said.

“Their art is inextricably linked to the person they are,” Starcovic wrote. “Even if they don’t know how to get there, they know exactly where they’re going.”

Eventually, Stone’s dream is to return to the environment of a community studio, maybe even owning one in the future.

Stone chases inclusivity in their work, aiming to create a space for queer people without uninviting women or men. When people perceive their work, Stone wants viewers to feel contentious and that they can and should take up space.

“I want women to see themselves taking up space, and I want queer people to see themselves taking up space,” Stone said. “I want them to feel seen, and if I can take up that space and hold it for them, then that’s me winning.”

Published on March 23, 2023 at 9:48 pm