Catherine Witherell: Muse Personality

I took a two day class in the Spring of 2005 and immediately went home and bought a kiln because I was completely obsessed!

I began as a ceramic artist, a potter to be more exact and was always taking classes and experimenting in the “Pottery Barn” in the old historic neighborhood of Salem, Oregon. My husband and I moved around some right after we were first married and before we had kids. We started out in San Francisco, moved to Eugene, Oregon and then Salem, Oregon.

Minneapolis came after that and there I saw a real Tiffany lamp in the shop window that was selling for about $2000 and I didn’t have that, so I decided I wanted to make one.

I took a series of classes and went nuts over stained glass and made the lamp and then designed a hand mirror and other things before we decided to move back to the SF Bay Area to have kids. After our 2 kids were 5 and 6, we got together the resources to outfit a small ceramic studio in a nice sized gardening shed in our yard and I made stuff! Espresso mugs, carved cups and mugs, bowls, rolling bisque stamps and platters patterned with them, I learned about sculpture and took classes for ideas and techniques… Well, you could say I was busy.

I had a few shows and I was sitting imagining one day that I wanted to be a goldsmith and then, it seemed like the next minute, I heard about metal clay. Around the same time I’d started attending a mixed media art retreat called Artfest organized by Teesha Moore. I attended for about 8 years and for three of those years I taught sold out classes with 20 students each, teaching them about metal clay. It was a very satisfying period.

After that I just plowed through the metal clay and taught at Artfest for Teesha Moore. I posted hundreds of photos to flickr and got myself into some other books and magazines for a while. I wrote 3 articles for Belle Armoire Jewelry 2 and 3, was invited into a mixed media jewelry book called “A Charming Exchange: 25 Jewelry Projects To Create & Share” by Kelly Snelling and Ruth Rae (2008), “Metal Clay Beads: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration” (Lark Jewelry Book) by Barbara Becker Simon (2009), and “The Art of Metal Clay, Revised and Expanded Edition (with DVD): Techniques for Creating Jewelry and Decorative Objects” by Sherri Haab (2010). My work has been included in three of the five PMC Annual books (2007),(2008) and (2011).

I’ve also been published in three mixed media books “1,000 Artist Journal Pages: Personal Pages and Inspirations (1000 Series)” by Dawn DeVries Sokol (2008), “Crafter’s Devotional: 365 Days of Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Unlocking Your Creative Spirit” by Barbara Call (2009) and “Collaborative Art Journals and Shared Visions in Mixed Media” by L.K. Ludwig (2009). I LOVE BOOKS!

In 2008, I got a crazy inspired idea to compile a jewelry zine and wrote a letter to 50 jewelry artist friends who I considered to be my peer group, many had been published before but we all wanted more interaction and exposure and a reason to create. I really wasn’t interested in a zine per se, which is just a little pamphlet with a couple of pages xerox copied and folded over.

My partner in crime, Deryn Mentock was a big support to me and finally it turned into a 128 page book with 17 how-to projects and gloriously colorful art filled pages, some inserts, cut-outs and stickers. Hadar Jacobson inspired me to self publish and I used her printer who made me almost 300 copies that I spiral bound myself. I know it could have been way easier to ask them to do it all but then I would have lost the handmade aspect of the project so I persevered and bound them all myself by hand. They sold out in about 2 months.

If you’re in a small specialized group of artists, and I mean now about 500-1500 people because of facebook and other social media, people are going to know anyway. I have friends that make the birdhouse shape, some gave me credit that the idea came from me, some don’t and act like it was their idea. I let it go as soon as it was published. A gift for their attention and I get the private credit that there are people out there who really like that design. I keep saying this and it doesn’t make me popular, that “The world is a big, fat, freaking free-for-all.”

You can get an idea and not remember exactly how you got it. You can get an idea and know exactly where you got it too. If you’re on the Internet a lot, the ideas are endless and constantly streaming. If your idea succeeds and you can make some money from it, then use it for your benefit until other people start copying you and then look into your little notebook and find a new idea and move on.

An artist who feels like they’re being stolen from is acting like their best idea is behind them and a better viewpoint is that your best work is ahead of you. So why hoard that old idea? Take the next risk! Truth is I can’t stand making more than about 10 – 12 of anything so I like the variety of the new idea and I try to stay away from ideas that I know other people have a very strong vested interest is theirs, even if it really isn’t.

I have traveled to a lot of places to meet artists who are now famous to hear what they have to say and show me what they’ve figured out. They all got something from someone who worked hard and had an idea before they did. The most successful ones are the ones that keep on working on their new ideas after the book comes out. They are the ones that teach and get some new twists from their less experienced students. They’re also the ones who love what they do and their success is about sharing and helping others express themselves and the goodness that comes back to them because of it. I’ve benefited from them greatly. It’s not really about the credit. Maybe what it could be is fear or envy that someone else could take your idea and make it better or succeed with it more than you could. I encourage people to take any idea I have and use it however they want. I admire the ones who allowed that with me.

I’ve set up individual projects on the bench and I’m doing common steps at the same time, like a mini assembly line. Forming, trimming, sanding, firing, polishing, tweaking, then the patina and assembling.

Around 3:00, maybe I’d look something up and take a short break. I’m not tired at all and after returning some emails or a fun phone call to some artist I am collaborating with, I go back to work until I’m all out of ideas and I’m at a solid stopping point, or I start dropping things, whichever comes first.

I’ve stayed up until I hear the birdies chirping and think “Oh no, maybe I should get some sleep.” By that point there are 14 completed pieces, all different yet related, on my bench with only 3 more to finish… I can do that tomorrow.