Barbara Katz

Barbara Katz

I live in the woods in northeastern Connecticut where I create in a large, light, beautiful studio. I travel as frequently as possible to Europe and other, more exotic, places for both pleasure and for inspiration. In the past few years I have found Western Africa, Ethiopia, Iran, Russia, Northern India, and Mongolia to be wonderful sources of stimulation.


I am a sculptor and potter working with clay. I create simple forms based on, and evocative of, ancient ritual vessels, artifacts, and shamanic figures. Whether hand-building figurative sculpture or abstract forms, or making vessels, I am obviously concerned with the three-dimensional configuration, but at the same time and of equal interest to me is the surface decoration. My work has a consistent unique quality; the surface retains the natural clay color with areas of various textures, thin washes of color, and sometimes pictorial elements. The work is all hand-built using a delta 6 white stoneware clay for everything, sometimes using grog and/or silica. A turquoise glaze is used for color, along with copper, iron, rutile, Mason stains, and a black slip glaze.


I grew up in the Boston area, attended the Massachusetts College of Art and the Museum School as a high school student and graduated from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst with a B.A. in Art and Art History. After a year of travel in Europe and North Africa, I moved to California and attended classes at the San Francisco Art Institute. After two years there, I settled in Connecticut.


I exhibit regularly in national juried exhibitions and have received many awards. I have participated in invitational exhibitions in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont. One-person exhibitions of my work have been held at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT; Wesleyan Potters, Middletown, CT; Westover School, Middlebury, CT; and Slater Memorial Museum, Norwich, CT.


Selected group exhibitions include “State of Clay”, Lexington, MA; “USA Craft Today”, New Canaan, CT; “Women in the Visual Arts”, New Haven, CT; Kohn, Peterson, Fox Gallery, New York; Frog Hollow Craft Center, Middlebury, VT; Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA; Mystic Arts Association, Mystic, CT.

My work is part of the permanent collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA; and many private collections. Professional affiliations include: Connecticut Women Artists and Silvermine Guild Center for the Arts, New Canaan, CT.

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