kathryn e. martin

Commissioned by the class of 2019, who believed their class to be bigger than any one person, they responded more favorability to natural things: ideas, forms or materials.

There was a consensus that the graduates were confident about their future, having many paths to take and many places to explore. In the midst of all these paths, they acknowledge that University School of Milwaukee (USM) was consistently located in the middle, their central connection.

Someone said: “All branches lead out, but they come back here”. The graduates always find their way back. “All branches lead out, but they come back here”.

This, and the before mentioned list were the materials I worked with to form, sculpt, and imagine a low maintenance work of Art to represent the school, its students and its effects.

Inspired by the students’ words I was led to the Oak tree. As a native tree to Wisconsin, the Oak tree is symbolic of, among other things; life, strength, wisdom, nobility, family, loyalty, power, longevity, heritage and honor. To some, the Oak tree has been considered a storehouse of wisdom embodied within its towering strength. It has been a mystical symbol of truth and bravery, standing as a firm reminder that humankind has the ability to overcome all odds as well as a tremendous capacity for kindness - even to strangers whose path we cross.

In literature and folklore, the Oak tree has been known to provide protection to leaders and warriors, while representing the ultimate in hospitality and safety. And while it was very clear that the students did not want to have direct reference made to their Common Core, I can see its ideas manifest in the Oak Tree. Together, the Oak tree and USM, stand for trust, respect, kindness, honesty, and fairness.

And like the students whose branches lead out but ultimately guide them back, the Oak tree follows a similar path: Oak Tree roots mirror their branches.

This brought me to growth. Standing 16’ from the base, growth is a water jet cut, three paneled Stainless-Steel form representing the root and branch structure of an Oak tree, reflecting itself top to bottom, left to right. Like the class of 2019, growth is unified by its core, coming together as a whole and made to be substantially more by the coming together of individual elements. Each line, each part made to be larger as a unified whole.

9,000 + paper airplane tails

Each airplane folded from 8 1/2" x 11" paper

Pile dimensions vary

A pile. 

A beautiful pile of folded, but not yet opened paper airplane asses. 

Here I Am was created and installed as a site-specific installation for Northern Arizona University Art Museum. Made from approximately 20,000 cast plaster rocks, each rock was positioned on the wall and/or floor to specifically reveal the topography of Flagstaff, AZ and it’s surrounding area.

Using a topographical map obtained from the American Geological Society Library (AGSL), information was projected to locate Flagstaff in the center of it all. More specifically, Flagstaff’s “pin” was located in the lower corner of the gallery space, allowing the topography to radiate up the walls, onto the floor and down the wall to meet and greet its visitors.

Here I Am is about connection to one’s place, one’s practice and what we choose to pick up and carry with us.

Plane on Plane presents the viewer with folded, crisp white pieces of paper made into airplanes. 

As an archive, the form reflects a simple motion, and as a symbol, works to provoke emotion, unfolding power and imagination. Plane on Plane has been installed as 5,280 planes, 2,300 and just over 8,000. Each installation is made to fit specifically its space, consume the viewer and amplify movement.

50,000 Styrofoam cups, snugged end to end, wall to wall and breath to breath. 

Lunchtime Conversations, J Steps and Martin Puryear is one example of “making do,” wearing a wig, and performing an act of la perruque to find a solution. 

A die was constructed based on the exact diameter of a styrofoam cup and the leftover holes allowed the foam to be gently stretched, snugged, and glued around those cups. 

Initially scared of their tentacle-like shapes, I pushed further to
investigate what would happen when the individual lines of foam- bound cups were placed into position to hold each other, to use their form and inherent mechanics in defining both shape and place. 

The form began to dictate itself and having three strips filled, stretched, and bound around each other made me immediately hear the dialogue between the two – of scale responding to respective sizes, masses, and tensions.

Made from stringing 50,000 Styrofoam cup bottoms along a single piece of monofilament, Knot (for Frank) sits as evidence of doing, of wonder (how big would 50,000 pieces become), and of good old fashioned stubbornness, despite my 70 year old neighbor (Frank) asking me again, day after day, "why the hell I do what I do". 

For the beauty of it. I do this for the beauty of it. 

By definition, “flotant” means to fly or stream in the air. Expanding on this notion, Flotant worked to transform the Projects Gallery of the John Michael Kohler Art Center into a floating marsh (suspended by extruded plastic rods). 

Masses of rims—from approximately 50,000 Styrofoam cups—hovered over the walls and spilled onto the gallery floor, making the large open space feel intimate. 

Unified through repetition, grouping, proximity, and density the rims lost their associations with the cups and became an essential part of the whole installation. 

This environment referenced Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi. In the story, Pi finds himself on a floating island that is a temporary shelter and place of hope. And in this site-specific installation, Flotant, plays with the negative spaces formed by the rims to evoke an inviting island mass—at once visible and invisible—allowing for thoughtful contemplation.

55 gold leafed rocks, found by my children (ages 2 and 5) in our backyard and nearby parks.

These are the rocks from which Here I Am were cast. 

I didn't know what I was going to do for this show. 

I didn't know what I was going to do and I tested out a theory. 

Challenging myself to create a piece of art from whatever was within my arms' reach, I created I need to be in control at all times. 

Sitting at my studio desk, I watched my beckoning cat wave to me, away from me, to me, away. As the arm moved the body sat anchored in a bed of plastic grass, green plastic grass. To the left of those objects was a leftover bowl of lime green Jell-O and to its left, a stack of coffee filters. 

I took the coffee filters, cut around the exterior edge, removing it while making a lateral incision to cut the circle in half. Left with a thin strip of absorptive material, I rolled up the strips and dipped them in the leftover green Jell-O. The coloring was beautiful and I suddenly needed another material to hold that form: individual blades of plastic green grass. 

As with the rest of my works, I repeated this process until the stack of coffee filters was used up, and to make sense of it all, and to display the form that was: morse code. 

On the wall, repeated 12 times, its says, in morse code: 

I NEED TO BE IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES. 

Shooting for the Stars (sometimes titled Attempts at Perfection) is a site-specific work installed to fit each location’s specificity and needs.

Made from individually shot at starred target paper, the frames showcase missed opportunities, extended efforts and how close, yet simultaneously far we are from reaching set goals.

Constantly aware of how much I push others and how pushed I am, this piece speaks towards those ideas while giving a clean, uniform, scenographic hanging style.

Congratulations Milwaukee was a site specific installation designed to capture the celebratory feelings and emotions and put them on display for all those who entered the newly designed Milwaukee Art Museum.

Cut from MAM Admission tickets, I turned each ticket into a character, and grommeted individual characters together to proudly display words of encouragement, excitement and well wishes from the very artists and designers who have helped make MAM the great place it is today.

I worked with local high school students, UW-Milwaukee students as well as the docents, educators and young artists at the MAM. 

Originally commissioned to create a sculpture for the lobby of Renaissance Theaterwork during the production of Athol Fugard’s Road to Mecca, I found passion in the life and spirit of Helen Martins, the main subject of the playwright. A true outsider artist, Martins was driven to make Art, make it in abundance, and make it lift her spirit. 

Rightfully so; this is what Art should do for all of us – trained, educated, learned or unlearned. I tapped into her passion and ran with it. 

Martins’ house (where the play is set) is known as the Owl House. She believed the owl to be her totem spirit and wanted to be protected by it. 

I partnered with members of the greater Milwaukee community, girls from Pearl’s Girls, a Girl Scout troop, and young women from the Sojourner Truth House to create approximately 800 owl forms. 

We made so many because, like the generous spirit of Martin and so many outsider and non-artists, we wanted to give – to share – the happiness and importance of Art. Everyone who came to the Renaissance Theaterwork production was able to take an owl home. 

This commissioned project presented itself as part of a state-funded building, built in 1959, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Chadbourne Hall. 

Constructed as a Y-shaped Residence Hall, Chadbourne Hall stretches upward in stark contrast to its counterpart and other half, Barnard Hall. Barnard Hall and its handsome style of architecture, that had for so many years characterized the buildings on Madison’s campus, began to be replaced by more cost effective, space-efficient “high density structures.” The state was asking for a public work – inside or outside – that could be sited at either or both residence halls. 

Through my process, I was drawn over and over again to the footprint of Chadbourne Hall’s Y-shape, a shape that became an integral component of my found object. I challenged myself to create a sculpture utilizing only this shape, ascertaining that the sculpture would have to fully and effectively come together in combination and connection. The sculpture would symbolically unify the two residence halls, while conveying the appearance of togetherness.

I tasked myself with creating Ellipsoid , an 8 ’x 8’ x 8’ welded aluminum sculpture – a new “high density structure” that would stand in reflection of the past as a marking of the present, looking towards its unfolding future, a form standing in connection with the spirit of this place.

My clients were inspired by the close connection Ellipsoid had with its architectural inspiration. They were looking for the same. 

He, wanting to look out of his second floor home office, over the sprawling city and see a sculpture rising from the ground, piercing the sky like a ship’s prow. His wife, wanting nothing of the sort. Rather insisting that the sculpture rise no higher than two feet from the ground. 

After listening to their needs, spending time with the space and again finding beauty in a backdrop of architectural lines and built contours, Prowess came to be. 

He, pleased with the boldness of color and resilience of the cast eco-resin, having never to worry about sun damage, cleaning, wind, snow or the damage grandchildren might wreck. She, delighted in movement and form that exuded all the presence necessary and all at a mere 18 inches off the ground.

Topos is celebration of place in two parts. Part One: a topographical map of Milwaukee’s East Side installed on the 16’ walls. Occupying 4 square miles, the East Side extends north-south from Capital Drive to the Milwaukee river defining the Third Ward’s southern edge and west-east, from The Milwaukee River to Lake Michigan. 

This map is CNC cut from reclaimed Honey Locust and Ash. Working closely with the City of Milwaukee’s Urban Forestry Department, the wood used in this project was from the trees previously located just out the front door. 

Facing the scaling topography is Part Two: a bench. Presented as a 4” deep cross –section of an Elm tree, the seat cantilevers off the existing column to provide a place for rest, contemplation, and memorial of past and present: acknowledging where we have come from and where we are going. 

Game On is about the frustration in playing the game.

Too often we find ourselves talking too much about the game, which in effect makes the game unplayable. 

Its about doing vs. talking about doing. 

I like to do. 

Revealing a commitment to working with ordinary forms—often hundreds or thousands of them—and working to shape the accumulated fragments into a new whole, potential was found in the binder clip. 

With focus on transcending inherent ideas of elegance and monumentality, Flipback twists, turns, and undulates as evidence of its own doing and process of its own making.

Three 12" x 12" x 8" boxes stack on top of each other on top of a 24" x 24" mirror.