Kathryn Mayfield

PotterMember Since 2009

“Let’s take a pottery class!” My close friend Anne spoke those fateful words almost twenty years ago. Together, we signed up for a class at the Greenville Art Museum in South Carolina. A couple of weeks later we were both amazed and dismayed at how difficult it was to make something on the wheel that didn’t resemble a melted ashtray, and how horrifyingly easy it was to destroy that ashtray by over-trimming it, exploding it in the bisque firing, or glazing it in some unpleasant combination of colors. But, we persevered through the class, and eventually graduated to making actual ashtrays, pencil holders, and (on a good day) mugs. Once I started working with clay, I never looked back. I have been a member of Wesleyan Potters since 2009.

I make primarily functional items. I want people to touch my pottery; to drink coffee from my mugs, serve salad from my bowls, light candles in my votive holders. I am inspired by natural colors, patterns, and forms, the tracery of frost on a window, the lace of a dragonfly wing, the shapes of leaves. Most recently, I have been creating more hand-built pieces, and working with sgraffito techniques.

Featured Work