KATE RITSON

sculpture

 

Title: Inverted Totems

Year Completed: 2002

Materials: Cedar

Dimensions: 8'4" x 11" x 3

40,000.

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Kate Ritson

by Paula Owen

It is an honor to contribute to a document that will, like most art, outlast our corporeal

selves. One aspires to write something that will add to the understanding of the artist

and her work by a reader of today or far in the future.

 

Kate Ritson has made this a less daunting task by being the kind of artist whose

personal identity is visible in her work. By studying her sculpture for its essential

properties, one can correctly imagine many of Ritson’s essential characteristics and

values.

 

The exquisite craftsmanship of the works is a reflection of the way Ritson conducts her

life. I have found that those who choose to incorporate painstaking hand craftsmanship

into their work, generally make other carefully considered choices,

more satisfaction in the process of making and living than in recognition of the degree of

material gain. This is certainly true of Kate Ritson, who is known for her commitment to

people and principles, her dedication to teaching, and her personal integrity.

 

Her awe of the natural world is revealed in both the forms and materials she uses, and

her work ethic is evident in the scale and painstaking surface patterning. Like Ritson

herself, her sculpture is both rugged and elegant, appealing to both our masuline and

feminine sensibilities. Never pretentious, Ritson’s works and persona aim

between art and life, between power and beauty, and between tangible and abstract ideals.

 

Paula Owen

Director of the Southwest School of Arts and Crafts