Katrina Murray

mixed-media artist

"Art making has always been a catalyst for healing for me."

Katrina Murray

@KATRINAJMURRAY Katrina, whose professional experience is in oil painting, decided to learn about ceramics. She planned a trip to Greece to take a workshop and travel to another island in the Aegean Sea. But pandemic restrictions led her to reimagine her Creative Renewal experience. She took Peggy Breidenbach’s 15-week class, Finding Your Way with Clay, at the Indianapolis Art Center. Knowing a talented ceramicist such as Peggy provided an opportunity to pick her brain as I set up my own kiln and ceramic studio. She did an on-site visit where she helped me test-fire my kiln and reviewed my studio workflow. We had a fine lunch where we toasted to the success of my ceramic studio and our new friendship. A visit to the "Future Retrieval: Close Parallel" exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum became a turning point for Katrina. The curators, artist-duo Katie Parker and Guy Michael Davis, juxtaposed an eclectic array of objects from the CAM’s decorative arts collection with startling pieces of newly created art. It illustrated an interdisciplinary approach to collage and ceramic mixed-media works—a practice I have been working through for some three years now. I did not see a way forward for my work until seeing the work by that artist duo. It was after this trip that Katrina began reconfiguring space in her own home for a 350-square-foot ceramics studio, with new equipment purchased through her Creative Renewal grant. The home studio allows for breaks, like tea and lunch, in my garden where I cultivate flowers, fruits, and vegetables. I am creatively inspired, and now self-reliant with my own equipment and have a sense of wonder from this new medium.