The Rural We: Alison Palmer
The local ceramicist's work will be featured in a prestigious Smithsonian craft show.
Clay Way Studio Tour, an annual opportunity to tour the great clay studios in western Connecticut and beyond, is scheduled for this weekend, Oct. 16 and 17. One of the participating artists, Alison Palmer of South Kent, has some big news: She was selected as an artist in the Smithsonian Craft Show October 23-31. This Craft Show is a sale of the finest contemporary craft and design handcrafted in America; artists are carefully selected from a competitive pool of applicants by a panel of esteemed jurors. Because of COVID, the show is virtual this year, but it’s set up so that each artist has a “booth” as if it’s in person, and Palmer is still busily finishing up pieces for the show.
I’m from New York and was brought up in a family that really loved art and handmade things. My mother is an artist — she was a children’s book illustrator and now paints portraits and landscapes. My father did woodworking, and built furniture and shelving. I did my first ceramic piece in pre-school, and I still remember the magic of the clay. That got me hooked, and I’ve been doing that pretty much ever since.
After attending Kansas City Art Institute as well as the California College of Arts and Crafts, I moved to Katonah, New York. I met and married Steve Katz (a musician and founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears) and we did wholesale shows of my work, selling to catalogs and gift shops. When that work collapsed, I started doing more one-of-a-kind stoneware pieces.
Together Steve and I run my studio in South Kent where we host workshops for some of the finest potters in the world. We do the firings on our property in Kent.
My work is one-of-a-kind, generally anthropomorphic. I make pots into figures. We have two kilns — one heated with wood, one with soda ash, which gives the pieces a soft, satin sheen.
I had originally been accepted into the Smithsonian Craft Show two years ago, but COVID interrupted that. To be considered, I sent in about five photos of my work and pictures of our physical booth. Each artist’s work in the virtual show is supposed to look like a booth. I had to design a banner and logo, so that when people look in virtually, it’s like walking down the aisle of a crafts show.
I have over 100 works in the show. For days Steve has been photographing and adding my pieces to the show. We won’t be getting the URL to my booth until the show opens, but it will go online at smithsonianartscraftshow.org on October 23 at 9 a.m. It’s sponsored by the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, and proceeds support grants to the Smithsonian for education, outreach, and research projects.
After Clayway this weekend, I will be exhibiting at shows in Litchfield and Kent. Then we’re going to Mexico, where we go every winter for three months to work on workshop programming for the following year.
