An Interview with Kaitlyn Lake
Connected to the Air Force since birth, military kid turned military spouse Kaitlyn Lake shares a bit of her life through functional and artistic pottery. In a life whose landscape is ever-changing, it's comforting to feel grounded by the lovely earthen pieces.
MilspoFAN: Tell us a little about yourself, your journey as a military spouse, and where you are today. (Include things like where you have lived, who is in your family, where you grew up, how long you and your spouse have been “in”, or how you met your spouse)
Kaitlyn: I was a military kid who is now a military spouse. Growing up, my mom introduced me to clay, and I have had a love for it ever since. I started throwing in high school, and then continued throughout college while working toward my Bachelor’s of Science in Economics. My father was in the Air Force during my childhood, so I ended up moving about nine times as a kid. I have lived in Florida, Mississippi, Japan, Texas, California, Montana, Maryland, Kansas, and Wyoming. Seeing different places and cultures helped shape my understanding of this world as a human, but also as an artist. While my father was stationed at F.E. Warren in Wyoming, I met my future husband in high school. My husband and I actually got married straight out of high school and headed to college together shortly after the wedding. After college, my husband commissioned into the Air force, so I was off again on new adventures. The longest I have ever lived in one place would be Wyoming, and while I will forever miss the way the sun rose and sank in the sky, I won’t miss the snow. I now am living here in Montgomery, Alabama, with my husband, our 18 month old son, and my dog Atticus.
MilspoFAN: Describe for us your creative work and the aesthetic of your ceramic work?
Kaitlyn: My pottery tends to lean more toward functional rather than artwork. I enjoy making kitchen wares; for example, I like to throw serving bowls and casserole dishes on the wheel. I have found in pottery that it doesn’t really matter how ugly your piece is, as long as you nail the glaze. A beautiful glaze is the most important part to achieving an aesthetic design. When I do make more sculptural pieces, I tend to lean toward sea life as my inspiration. I particularly enjoy adding little turtles to my pieces. I am actually in the process of making a large shallow bowl with five little turtles crawling toward the ocean on the inside. Here is the before photo:
I also enjoy throwing little, tiny cups and bowls on the wheel:
MilspoFAN: How do you cultivate your creativity?
Kaitlyn: I like to go to antique stores and find hand thrown pieces of pottery. Looking at antique pottery, you can see the lines from the maker’s fingers in the clay. The impressions the maker left behind ultimately tell the story about the pottery made. For myself, pottery is the art of leaving your touch immortalized in clay, making a piece that only your hand can produce. Since I lean more toward functional pottery pieces, when I find an antique piece of pottery, I feel the walls of the piece. I will run my hands over the clay body and see what my eyes cannot. I cultivate my creativity in this way, by feeling how the piece was formed and learning from it. When I am home, I will sketch out pottery ideas on paper or on my iPad. Here are a few sketches of mine:
Above is a drawing of an “Alabama Ring Bottle,” it was designed to be a water bottle for cowboys to saddles.
Here is some of my more sculptural sketches from college:
The base inspiration was taken from a glass blown piece I saw. I do often take inspiration from glaze blown pieces for my sculptural pieces. Currently this piece is still only on paper, I hope to one day bring it to life.
MilspoFAN: What classes are you currently teaching? Do you have a favorite?
Kaitlyn: Currently, I am teaching a wide variety of classes! I started off small, only teaching beginner’s wheel throwing, but I quickly started adding more specialized workshops into my schedule. My favorite class to teach is beginner's wheel throwing. I love seeing all the different ideas come to life over the course of four weeks. When I introduce glazing to the class, I always get some skeptical looks because the color you see in the bottle is not the final product. You really do have to use some imagination when glazing, which oftentimes is what I struggle with still. As I said before, though, if you can nail the glaze color on your pottery, no one will see the imperfections you see. Humans seem to love shiny things.
Here is a poster I made for my classes:
MilspoFAN: What’s next for you?
Kaitlyn: I think what’s next for me, after we move from Montgomery, is to buy a house and hopefully start my own home studio. I am currently teaching pottery classes, and I hope to continue at least that in the next place the military sends me to. I would love to buy a kiln to fire my pieces in whenever I would like! It isn’t necessarily feasible to have a kiln in military housing. I am going to continue teaching and creating kitchen wares and maybe even start selling some of my own pieces if I can find the time.
MilspoFAN: What is the most practical piece of advice that you would give to other artists?
Kaitlyn: The most practical piece of advice I can give to other artists is to always write down your ideas. I have my notes app filled with random pottery ideas that I will have when I am out and about. Having a physical sketchbook is also a good way to break down how you want to tackle a piece. A lot of my beginner students complain when I make them sketch their pieces out, but it really does help you think about your piece and study the lines. The silhouette of pottery pieces is very important to pay attention to when creating functional work, but especially sculptural work. One pottery throwing trick I will let you in on is when you are throwing a mug or a bowl is take a piece of leather and hold it against the rim of the piece while it is still spinning on the wheel. This will help compress the rim of the piece, adding structural integrity and also give you a rounded, aesthetically pleasing rim.
You can find Kaitlyn on Pinterest @KaitlynPottery or Kaitlyn.lake20@gmail.com