KARI WOOLSEY •   Carbondale, IL

Kari Woolsey is a ceramic artist from South Florida. Kari’s work focuses on the everydayness of objects and vessels around us through making functional pottery as well as larger installations. She received a BFA in Ceramics from Florida Atlantic University in 2011 and a MFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2018 and has completed artist residencies at Clay Arts Vegas, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, and New Harmony Clay Project. Today, Kari resides in Carbondale, IL where she works as the Assistant Director of Artspace 304 and teaches ceramics classes as an Assistant Professor of Practice at SIUC.  

"Through referencing specific objects and vessels found in the home, I want to connect my work with viewers' personal experiences. Our domestic spaces, like an overlooked corner of a living room or a catch-all windowsill next to a reading chair, can talk about very tender moments of our lives, either of introspective moments or relationships with loved ones. I hope to explore that space just under the surface of familiarity through formal elements like color, texture, line, as well as, referencing specific vessels commonly found in our everyday lives. My work becomes the expression of intimacy of the home, and how aspects of our domestic life might be uncomfortably sensitive but universal. The everydayness of the objects speaks to the amount of attention we lack to give them. They are common, easily replaced, and readily forgettable when it comes to how we relate them to our lives. Yet, these objects are unquestionably needed while also representing decisions that reflect our own daily needs, design tastes, and aspects of our personalities. Maybe this starts a conversation between a viewer and their things, or the space they live to think deeper about how we are connected to the objects that exist in the home, or maybe it is reminiscent of feelings of a childhood home. Ultimately, these domestic vessels reference what is actually found in our homes on a daily basis: a compilation of time, material things and memories."