By Donavan Barrier

Elkhart, IN

A singular event in one’s life will set someone on a lifelong passion or career. For Katharine Schmidt, it took only one painting that spoke to her on a massive level to spark a career both teaching and creating art.

Born in Indiana, Schmidt moved to Edwardsville, Illinois, at 13. There, she stayed and attended University of Illinois before transferring to the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, graduating there in 1976 with a master’s in fine arts. After graduating, she moved to Seattle Washington, with her husband, who was stationed there as a United States Public Health Service member. She continued her education there, studying drawing at the Seattle Academy of Fine Arts – now called Gage Academy– and becoming a Foundations instructor there.

During her husband’s time in the Public Health Service, she said her family was stationed across the United States, including Detroit, Boston, and Seattle. Eventually, Schmidt moved back to Indiana, where she gained her teaching certificate at Goshen College. Schmidt continued her art education career at both Ivy Tech Community College and Bethel University, where she retired. Now, she teaches figurative sculpting at the Elkhart Art League.

Schmidt said she always liked drawing and painting, and at nine years old she found her first influence in artist Thomas Eakins. She and her family visited an Indianapolis Museum of Art fundraising event, and came across Eakins’ painting The Pianist. It was the first great oil painting she had ever seen, and it moved her to study art for a living.

“They had to push me away so people could get cookies and punch. It was a very moving painting.”

Schmidt said the two artists who influenced her the most in ceramics were Lisa Clague and Christina Cordova. She loved Clague’s figurative work with coloration and surfaces, and Cordova’s influence was how she approached the anatomy of a figure.

When it comes to creating a piece, she said she works in phases. That way, she can give herself room to be creative and not do things by rote. She says she likes experimenting with her creations to make each piece unique.

“I’m not one of those people who finds a shtick and continues to make versions of the same thing over and over,” Schmidt said, “I like to have a lot of variety.”

She said uses her extensive knowledge of art history and her training in oil painting and color theory to paint directly onto the sculptures she builds before glazing them. She doesn’t force an idea onto the clay she’s working with. Instead, she takes what she described as a “collaborative approach” to her work, using images, illusions, and cultural knowledge to give her an idea.

“I’m not in control of this,” she said when speaking of how her work is done, “There’s a force that works through me.”

Getting the work done with this experimental approach is a little challenging. This difficulty, she said, helps her stay engaged with the piece until it is done. If she did the same kind of artwork over and over again the engagement would die away.

An average piece can take her approximately eight weeks to complete; sometimes the work varies. One of her sculptures, for example, took a couple of years to finish, while another unplanned piece took her less than a week to complete.

Over the years, she said she sold approximately twenty pieces of her work. In the meantime, she has been exhibited in over one hundred galleries and art shows, most recently at the 45th Juried Art Exhibition at the Midwest Museum of American Art in Elkhart, Indiana from September to December 2023. It was there she received the Purchase Award, a coveted and top honor.

“I use oil paint as a final layer on top of traditional ceramic glazes, under-glazes, oxides, and stains,” says Schmidt. Some people criticize her method as non-traditional.

Schmidt’s recent research involves pushing the boundaries of ceramic sculpture using paper clay and painting and drawing on these 3D ceramic surfaces. The work represents a change from traditional representation to symbolic explorations of personal, spiritual, and social themes.

KATHARINE SCHMIDT - Rebel