Clay & Green Tea



Clay & Green Tea

About The Artist

Kay Franz • Richmond, VA
Ceramics • WHOLESALE AVAILABLE

My work is greatly influenced by nature as well as by prominent and lesser-known artists, past and present. I am deeply grateful to all those influences that have provided me so much inspiration. What began in my own work as an exploration of the vessel form has over the years evolved into work that is non-functional and more sculptural in nature yet still owes much to more traditional forms. With clay I am attempting to express and share my innermost self. While we may recognize that we are all connected, we often feel so separated from each other. Through my work I hope we can have an intimate conversation that we may not be able to have face to face. My work is one-of-a-kind, hand-built using a combination of pinch, slab, and coil techniques. Surface colors and finishes use a combination of slips, glazes and or terra sigillata. Each piece is bisque fired to cone 05 and fired once again adding stains and or glazes.



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Q&A with the Artist

Tell us how your work is made.

My work is one-of-a-kind, hand-built using a combination of pinch, slab, and coil techniques. Surface colors and finishes use a combination of slips, glazes and or terra sigillata. Each piece is bisque fired to cone 05 and fired once again adding stains and or glazes.


What makes you passionate about the medium you work with?

I fell in love with clay as a BFA student at the University of Georgia. I'd taken an elective course in ceramics intending to go into sculpture. With the first piece I made I felt the medium had picked up on the heart of who I am and imbedded that into clay. Over the years I've recognized that I'm not just a maker I'm a tool through which clay speaks. My work is only successful if there's been a dialog between maker and medium. A piece that I treat too forcefully is likely to fail.

What is something unique about you or your practice?

I think my work has a unique expressiveness that reflects my love of nature, my love of subtlety and also owes a lot to primitive sources and techniques. I do not necessarily fit into any category and so I think I convey something very personal and unique to me.