Today’s studio visit is with Jamie Bates Slone and Catie Miller from Kansas City, Missouri.
Jamie Bates Slone
The focus and significance of my work lies in the state of the human condition, the delicacy and fragility of the human construct in an emotional and physical sense. My experience is that of being part of an extended family that has endured a history of cancer and high mortality rate. As I have become more aware of my family’s history with illness through the examination of my memories, I have become wary of the future and empathetic of the past. I often find myself attributing to others my own unease in relation to cancer. This projection of my anxieties onto others acts as cancer does in metastasis, spreading from one location to another. My work is an examination and reflection of the memories, emotions, and anxieties caused by my family’s history with cancer with an emphasis on the relationship between human biology and human emotion.
About
Jamie Bates Slone is a ceramic artist known for her figurative work in clay paired with with projected imagery as surface as well as her experimental work in the casting of ceramic glazes. Her most recent work addresses the fragility of the human spirit in the midst of illness and loss in relation to her family’s history with cancer. Jamie earned her MFA with honors in Ceramics at the University of Kansas in Spring of 2012 where she received the Professional Development Assistance Award. She earned her BFA in Studio Art with and emphasis in Ceramics in 2008 at the University of Central Missouri. Jamie is currently a Foundation Resident Artist at Red Star Studios in Kansas City, Missouri and adjunct faculty in ceramics at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. Jamie has exhibited work in galleries throughout the U.S. including the Spencer Art Museum in Lawrence, Kansas, Jacob Lawrence Gallery in Seattle, Washington, First Street Gallery in New York City, New York, and the St. Petersburg Clay Company in St. Petersburg, Florida. She most recently won first place at the Clay3 National Juried Exhibition juried by Kurt Weiser.
Catie Miller
Loose, slightly humorous, and unsettling illustrations animate my ceramic artworks. I choose to draw portraits of people’s hidden lives, magnifying the people’s features and the private moments of their lives. Currently, I am exploring the obsessive collection of things—hoarding, and how this fixation interferes with the quality of daily life and relationships. Growing up, we had a lot of stuff; overflowing boxes of papers, small mountains of clothes, and a cat for every family member. Frequently moving throughout my life has forced me to evaluate my relationship with my possessions. I incorporate multiple layers of surface to create a crowded environment for the narrative. Much like hoarding challenges home as comfort, the addition of exaggerated ornamentation and form challenges the comfortable feeling of function, engaging the viewer to contemplate his or her relationship to objects.
About
Catie Miller graduated from Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) with a degree in Art Education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a ceramic emphasis in May 2013. After graduation, Miller relocated to Kansas City, KS and accepted a long-term artist residency at Red Star Studios. With a variety of interests she has developed skills in an array of areas including printmaking and drawing. She has embraced many opportunities to work within the art community teaching and coordinating classes for youth and adults interested in the arts.
Miller has shown her work nationally and internationally as well as throughout the Midwest. She has been showcased in several local and national publications, including Ceramics Monthly’s “Undergraduate Showcase” and “Exposure.” Additionally, she was a member of the Fargo Moorhead Visual Artists group serving on the board as treasurer and was involved as an education intern with Walking, Waiting, Wandering, Words—a public art project developed through the Arts Partnership and the City of Fargo.
All images copyright of the artist and used with their permission.
MIDWEST ARTIST STUDIOS ™ PROJECT 