“ RISD really pushed me to my limits in such a positive way. I love how involved everyone was and how they weren’t afraid to hold anything back.”
“very smart, very original. Katie knows a lot about handling materials and taking a project from a concept to a finished object,” he says. “She has a unique way of being spontaneously fun while taking risks, which is in some ways made possible by her skill as a designer and maker.” After joining the design hajj to Brooklyn three years ago, Stout admits that she “had to be a bit of a hustler,” meaning that while she sold some of her original furniture, she “had to supplement sales with miscellaneous freelance work to get by.” A day job at Johnson Trading Gallery gave her the opportunity to show some of her work there. Before long, she was offered the director gig at the gallery, which led to connections with artists like Bjarne Melgaard. Working on his 2013 Ignorant Transparencies installation for the Whitney gave her just enough exposure to feel like she might be able to make a go of focusing on her studio work full-time. But first she stumbled into TV land. “I often think about how my mother would have reacted to that choice,” Stout says, explaining that her mother, Katrina Morosoff 71 PH, passed away from cancer during Wintersession of her first year at RISD. “She was incredibly influential and supportive of me as an artist/maker growing up and was also very grounded and down to earth. I think she would have been shocked and highly entertained that I would compete on a furniture design reality show.” Stout shares her mother’s love of making—which eventually led her to consider RISD for college. “Maybe I chose RISD because my dad didn’t want me to go,” she says with a laugh. “But it was really that I didn’t want to go to a liberal arts school and major in science.”
In her own practice, Stout creates playful lamps, rugs, chairs, tables and other furnishings that reflect her pop aesthetic and bubbly personality.
SPRING/SUMMER 2015
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