The Queue: Katherine Gray
Discover what individuals from our craft community are into right now.
Introducing the Legacy series of The Queue
Alongside the winners our 2020 Awards being featured in the October/November 2020 issue of American Craft, the Legacy series of The Queue offers a platform for this group of incredible artists and advocates to share personally about their lives and work. Plus, take in their shortlists of exciting projects, people to follow, content to consume, and more.
For Katherine Gray, legacy means helping guide the next generation of artists
2020 ACC Fellow Katherine Gray is a glass artist and professor of art and design at California State University, San Bernardino. Read more about her career and experience her work in the "Honoring Accomplishments" feature from the Legacy issue of American Craft.
↑ Photo: Fredrik Nilsen
How do you describe your work or practice in 50 words or less?
I'm a glassblower, artist, and educator.
As an ACC Fellow, what responsibilities come with this type of recognition?
To be a role model, and to keep working!
What type of legacy do you hope to leave with your work and career?
Even though I make objects that exist in the world, I like to think of my legacy as being somewhat intangible, more as a positive influence on students and other artists that I've interacted with during my career.
What has been the biggest barrier you've had to break through to get to the place you’re at with your career?
This is going to sound so cliché, but overcoming self-doubt. It took a bit for me to have the confidence in myself, my skills, and my vision, to make and show the work I wanted to make.
What book should we be reading or paying attention to right now?
I'm sure there are a lot of books covering this terrain, but I really enjoyed (not sure if that is the right word) The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World by Laurence Scott. It's so alarming to me how smartphones have fundamentally changed so much of our culture and how we experience life. Although I am not happy to be as old as I am, I am so thankful to have at least enjoyed a significant part of my life pre-2007!
Even though I make objects that exist in the world, I like to think of my legacy as being somewhat intangible, more as a positive influence on students and other artists that I've interacted with during my career.
Are you binge-watching anything right now?
I've been rewatching Schitt's Creek because there was so much I missed or didn't appreciate fully the first time through, like Moira's vocabulary and her outfits.
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