Telephone interview with Katherine Chilcote, NYSS MFA ’05

Seattle, Washington.

January 21, 2016

Geoffrey Stein: Hi Katherine.

Katherine Chilcote: Hi Geoff. Where am I talking to you from.

GS: I am in my studio in New York City. Where are you, Katherine?

KC: I am in Seattle Washington.

Photo Tiffany Ann Laufer, Cleveland Collectivo

Background

GS: Are you originally from Cleveland?

KC: Yes, Cleveland, Ohio.

1

GS: Can you tell me a little about your background, Katherine?

KC: I was born in Cleveland Ohio and lived there most of my life. I come from a family of artists,

Midwest Presbyterians and craftsman who were rooted in the industrial fields of the rust belt. We had

some lawyers and small business owners, but a lot of my family works for the Chilcote company, that

does paper cutting and bookbinding. We are on our 7th generation in Cleveland Ohio. We were always

reminded that our ancestors had risen out of poverty through hard work.

GS: Growing up in a creative family, were you always making art as a kid?

KC: Yes, I was. We had no television and I had three older brothers who were very rowdy, so the arts

were something where I could do away from all the noise of life as a kid.

My oldest memory of making art regularly was actually a restorative practice to get through my

experience of living with epilepsy. I used to loose my eyesight all the time as a kid for 10-15 minutes

during and after a seizure, and my mom would just help me sit down and draw. I learned to see clearly

what I was making drawings of, even when I couldn’t clearly see the world around me. That is an

experience of inner knowing that bonded my drawing to a spiritual practice, rather than an objective

way of seeing.

I come from a family of artists, so there was always encouragement to create, without anyone naming

me “an Artist.” I still don’t believe that I’m actually an artist, I believe I’m just a participant in a greater

creation.

GS: Do you think there is something in your background that influences your art?

KC: Many things. My parents are Christians, and their faith was always a central part of how they used

their time, chose their careers and chose how to live. I grew up in a very racially and religiously

integrated neighborhood. That really affected my perceptions of academia, as there was little or no

connection with one’s community when creating work in formalist painting schools. Both as an

undergrad and graduate student, I was hungry to create work with a social purpose outside of the realm

of critical thinking about formalist painting concepts.

GS: Where did you go to college?

KC: I went to Indiana University and I received my bachelors in art history as well as fine art and a

minor in music composition in 2002.

2

GS: Do you play an instrument?

KC: Yes, I started in the conservatory as a pianist. I didn't really take to the stage very well and ended

up in fine arts.

GS: After you graduated from college, what did you do?

KC: I spent a year after college working in a gallery and teaching in the Cleveland public schools. I

worked on my first mural, for a public entrance way at the library of Baldwin Wallace College in

Cleveland, Ohio. I had a strong interest in mural making, but chose to go to Chautauqua to study with

Stanley Lewis when I received a scholarship for the summer 2003. That experience led me to the

Studio School.

It is Above that You and I Shall Go, Cleveand, Ohio. Photo via Katherine Chilcote.

New York Studio School

GS: When did you first hear of the Studio School?

KC: I first heard about the Studio School from my professor at Indiana University, Tim Tozer, who

3

spent a summer studying with Graham Nickson. He introduced me to a lot of concepts of drawing

which led me to do a summer session at the Studio School in 2000. There were a lot of teachers there

who had taken drawing marathons and were influenced by Graham Nickson.

GS: Was the Indiana University art program perceptually based?

KC: Indiana University was into high realism in the figurative painting realm. It was almost all working

from life. Eve Mansdorf was my main professor as an undergraduate at Indiana University.

It is interesting that Graham had such an influence on so many different people that I studied with. My

teachers came from a realm of figurative painting that was more out of the academy and the social

realism of the Midwest. I studied with Robert Barnes as well. If you look at a lot of schools in the early

2000s, there is such an influence from the Studio School. If you go to the Pennsylvania Academy of the

Fine Arts, to Yale, or the University of Washington, there were teachers there, who were students in the

70s and 80s at the studio school. Ann Gale is a leader out here and she's been to the Studio School too.

GS: What attracted you to the New York Studio School?

KC: Well I wasn't really looking for a degree when I was coming to the school. I had been to

Chautauqua with Stanley Lewis. Stanley helped me get to the school on a really tight budget. It was

literally just him helping me get in the door with a good work study package and scholarships. I was at

Chautauqua and I didn't have a plan, so I just joined Stanley.

GS: Who did you study with?

KC: I came to the Studio School to continue studying with Stanley Lewis, but I studied with many

teachers: Ophrah Shemesh, Charles Cajori and Graham, primarily. The teachers at the Studio School

were unbelievable. I studied with Mercedes Matter back in 2000, and Charles Cajori my first year of

the MFA program. I am so grateful to have had them in my life.

I was actually at the school because it was not structured like a traditional MFA. I had been at Indiana

University for my BFA and been exposed to the scrutiny, ego and mind building of reviews, and had

not grown well there. I needed to be in an environment where I could draw all day and learn from

multiple professor’s school of thinking. The studio school was a gem for that, so many minds there, so

many geniuses.

4

GS: Were you painting on your own at that point?

KC: Yes, I was. I didn't stick with the big studio environment very long. It was only a few weeks really

and then I was working on my own.

GS: Were you working representationally at that point?

KC: I was drawing all the time but I was inventing spaces and making up my own narrative. I had been

doing that kind of painting before I was at the Studio School, so I wasn't as interested in just working in

the studio from a setup.

GS: Have you been back to the Studio School since you graduated?

KC: I stayed far away for a long time cause I wanted to go in different directions with my work than

was supported there. I returned after 10 years for a drawing marathon this past fall with Graham.

Narcissus, oil on canvas, 44 x 64 inches, 2005. Photo via New York Studio School.

5

GS: After graduating from the Studio School you went back to Cleveland?

KC: I did. I started a non-profit.

GS: I'm going to get to your non-profit in a second. Do you teach currently?

KC: No, not currently but I have over the years.

I pursued teaching after receiving my MFA. I taught introductory drawing courses, figurative drawing

courses, anatomy for the artist, and figurative painting at University of Akron, Ashland University, and

three different community colleges. It’s just pennies to rub together though, so I didn’t stick with it,

though I do miss the mental space you get to hang out in while teaching.

Studio Practice

GS: When you went back to Cleveland you started a non-profit?

KC: Yes, I had done mural work in Cleveland in 2002 and in between years of grad school I had gone

home and done a piece that's in the sanctuary of a church. That community of people were so

incredibly supportive. When I went home, I was planning on having coffee around the corner with the

Pastor of the United Church of Christ, but he brought all the pastors who had supported the sanctuary

project to the coffee shop. It was like he had a whole board brought to me at the coffee shop. They were

saying “we want you to continue this mission and keep going.” I didn't have clear plans and they put up

some of the seed funds to start it. I just moved back to Cleveland that year. I didn't even stay in

Brooklyn for six months after school.

GS: Did you end up incorporating a non-profit organization?

KC: Yes, I had started that process when I was at the Studio School. We undertook our first major

project that is on a sound baffling wall by the side of a highway.

GS: What's the name of your non-profit?

6

KC: Building bridges.

GS: Is it still running?

KC: Yes. There are two other artists working in Cleveland and then I opened a branch in Seattle.

GS: Can you talk a little bit about your own studio practice?

KC: Most of my work is through the non-profit that focuses on creating sacred spaces through mural

making. Sometimes I work alone, but mostly I work collaboratively.

Rose Window for Slavic Village, Cleveland, Ohio, 2016. Photo Katherine Chilcote.

7

GS: How do you see the non-profit in terms of your practice?

KC: Any infrastructure around creative practice can be like a dance floor. It gives you a framework, but

sometimes you have to go outside that framework. I've always kept an objective relationship to

Building Bridges in that I do work through them, and it supports a lot of other muralists. There have

been over 15 projects with other artists as well as my own work. Working in that sector is very different

than trying to work within the art worlds small existing economy. That's one of the freedoms of

founding a non-profit: really no one is setting the bar except me. I'm funding projects independently,

I'm finding sites to invest in, I'm building partnerships with community development corporations and

property owners, businesses … I'm not in the realm of the white wall gallery.

GS: It sounds like social practice is very important to you.

KC: Yes, it is. Because I think I've been given these skills for a reason and that reason is not just to

make money. I'm not making an object so that it will increase in monetary value. Even if it does, that's

not my mission. I want to put work out there that can benefit others. I've worked in a lot of desolate

places. For instance, I have an abandoned gas station that I have a long term lease on. And I've used it

as a mural site.

GS: Did you raise the funds to take a long term lease on the gas station?

KC: Yes. I brought Erin Haldrup in on that project actually. She was in the Studio School class right

after mine.

8

Forsythia, Ohio City, Ohio, collaboration with Erin Haldrup, 2013. Photo via Katherine Chilcote.

GS: You have a social art practice, which involves organizing projects and raising funds for those

projects. Is it important to you to involve the community in those projects?

KC: Yes, the communities receiving murals, are very involved in the creation process. I've been

involved with community development corporations and landscape architectural firms that are doing

things like streetscape design or redevelopment initiatives. Community charrettes are a common

practice in those fields.

GS: Can you tell me what you mean by charrettes?

KC: Charrettes are when you are working with a whole caucus in a room to try to find what the visual

will be. What you would want to reinvent for that city space. Trying to draw from those ideas is very

different than coming up with ideas on my own. The project I'm on right now is for the headquarters of

the AFL-CIO. It is at an intersection of, what used to be years ago the jazz district in Seattle. It used to

be where the clubs were, where Duke Ellington would visit. It's also on the border of the international

district from where the Japanese Americans during WWII were deported. There's all this history around

the site that has to be considered when painting Labor History.

9

Site of the Jackson Street Worker's Mural. Photo via www.clevelandmurals.org.

KC: The project I'm on now, we did almost 15 charrettes before we got the drawn images for the mural.

We probably talked to 800 people about the history of the neighborhood and labor reform before we

found the right content.

GS: In addition to this social practice and the murals, are you making other work for yourself?

KC: Sometimes, when I have time. I have kept doing landscapes. But yeah, I've kind of separated out

from private work. I haven't delved into that in a long time.

GS: Can you tell us what your typical studio routine is?

KC: Right now I have four employees in Seattle. They're involved as partners in this project for the

headquarters of the Washington State Labor Council (AFL-CIO) and we work from ten to six every

day. Devon Midori Hale is the other artist on this project. There are not sections of the mural that are

exclusively her's or exclusively mine, but rather we’ve melded together as creative people. Our

drawing and painting does have unique distinctions but we have had to focus on communicating the

content most directly to the image. We have collaborated by letting go some of our own identity. That's

10

a really different way to work. We're not personally connected to the image, we're doing it for the

welfare of others. That's where it's public art and not traditional painting.

GS: Has your studio practice changed since you studied at the Studio School?

KC: Greatly. When I left I began to draw quickly from my imagination, photography, and observation.

The visual issues I’m working through now, were not ones I would have explored at all at the Studio

School. I frequently work with architects, urban planners, city planners, churches, community

development associations and clients. There are so many creative dialogues I have with coworkers

outside my field.

GS: Given the size of the murals, do you tend to work with other artists rather than just on your own?

KC: Yes, it's almost always necessary because they're so big. I'm the leader on this AFL-CIO project,

but it's another artist who has contributed many different drawings and ideas to the work and then

there's a writer who is working writing the content. It's an interesting team.

GS: What's the size of that mural?

KC: That's 380 feet long by 16 feet high. That's like painting an entire building's surface and we're

using aluminums and plastics that are being installed onto it. So we are creating a substrate wall on top

of the building. We're painting on aluminum that will be installed.

GS: What motivates you in your studio practice, Katherine?

KC: God, community vision, spiritual calling, gifts for others, healing, the youth I teach. Imagination.

GS: Were you involved in protesting the killing of Tamar Rice?

KC: Yes, I was protesting a lot when the verdict came out over the holidays. It's been a really difficult

time back home. The neighborhood has gotten pretty split up. It's usually a region where people are

very integrated, they know each other. So people are standing side by side, it's not as racially

segregated as other cities. There is a memorial that needs to be created at that site. It will take a team

of artists a long time, but restoring that park through a creative practice is needed in the community.

11

GS: How do you fund a project like that?

KC: I run a non-profit, so with my board of directors I would raise funds for a project like that. We've

been supported by the churches for years, so we have deep roots there. Often projects are in alliance

with other non-profits. I’ve worked in alliance with several larger organizations to be able to build

sacred spaces. Other projects have been supported by individuals and family. When I first started it was

literally door-knocking and getting people and businesses to invest in public beautification around their

businesses. Which is really different than making a painting. I just learned to do that kind of organizing.

GS: Did you learn that by doing it after the Studio School?

KC: I just started doing it. It was a risk but that is what I was doing. I was supported in multiple ways.

I had a church gymnasium donated to me and I had side jobs given to me just to get by. I had a lot of

support from neighbors and the unique environment in Cleveland that may not have happened for me in

another city.

GS: What issues are you focusing on in your work right now?

KC: The main visual issue is how to create an original form that is packed with conceptual ideals. I am

exploring politically charged content, historic narrative, color and compositional relationships. In

public art, the quality of my figurative painting skills rise up, but the social content that the

neighborhood and clients contribute creates a dialogue. I remember Glenn Goldberg speaking years

ago, and expressing that he could not be a skilled conceptual artist without perceptual training. I think I

may have landed in a similar camp, but as a social realist.

I'm painting an archway, like an arched ceiling in a church, except it's on an industrial bike path. It has

a real relationship to the people that are around it and the industries around it.

12

Settlers Landing, Cleveland, Ohio, 2009. Photo via Katherine Chilcote.

GS: It seems very different than the kind of formal issues often dealt with at the Studio School.

KC: I remember a critique asking someone to speak about the content of a work, and the conversation

was stopped mid sentence and redirected as a formalist discussion. That was confusing to me, as I was

creating work from personal narratives. I learned that if my work cannot communicate with its color

and form alone, it is not a successful painting. I was able to develop strong objective thinking about

colors, gestures, forms, relationships, lines, and spaces, but now my work is more about the narrative.

When I create work that is not content driven it feels shallow. What is exciting is the dialogue between

perceptual and conceptually driven work.

GS: Were you looking to put art into a community when you were at the Studio School?

KC: Yes. I had already started to do the mural work then. I didn't believe that I was an artist. I just have

been given a gift that I'm supposed to generate outward. That's different. I see my work as a tool to

13

begin a transformation. It's a devotion to others.

The Birth of Saul, oil on canvas, 54 x 55 inches, 2005. Photo via New York Studio School.

GS: How would you identify if you're not an artist? You're not saying you're a painter, but not an artist.

You're not drawing a semantic distinction between being painter and an artist, right?

KC: Right. I'm not in New York. I'm not trying out those semantics.

GS: Do you think any of the issues that you're dealing with come out of the specific media you are

using?

KC: I am just painting from what I see in my imagination. I'm not that analytical about the paint itself.

Maybe that's different after having been away for so long. I went back to do a marathon.

GS: How was that?

KC: I drew for two days without having anything else in my mind. I haven't had that kind of reverie in

years. It's a privilege. I'm not sure I necessarily made anything in that experience that was my own idea

of drawing. I think I ended up just being a machine.

14

GS: Do you experiment with different materials in your work?

KC: I’ve started to explore types of printing, fabrication of surfaces, various industrial varnishing

techniques, as well as hand made techniques. I’m not interested in making an object for a gallery wall.

That seems irrelevant to the world I live in, and driven by a capitalist market. Too many painters search

out self validation in the market, and harm their ability to hear the voice God gave them. I was working

on a design for a bus stop last week. I created the design in watercolor, but it would be engraved onto

glass when it is manufactured. I am open to crossing fields, because I came from a family that runs a

bookbinding and printing factory called the Chilcote Company. They were artists, but had brought

their creative minds into an industrial manufacturing field. Public art also does that.

GS: How do these issues relate to the specific process(es) or media you use?

KC: I work with architectural paneling, plastics, acrylic paints and industrial paints. I paint by hand, as

well as have work professionally varnished by furniture makers. The processes I use to arrive at

imagery is driven by community development practices. I have worked with Community Development

Corporations for the past years to lead charrettes and visioning workshops that open dialogue with the

community about public sites for mural installation. I frequently work along side gardeners, streetscape

designers, and architects who are improving the sites in different ways.

GS: Do you have a studio space, Katherine, in Cleveland or Seattle?

KC: I’ve been packing and unpacking my studio for different projects for ten years. I work in church

gyms, industrial buildings and outdoor spaces. I’m pretty detached from an environment needing to be

created for me to make work. Maybe I became flexible with that from being so crowded at the Studio

School with Jim, Fran, Becky and Cathy as studio mates. Those were the days.

15

Photo Katherine Chilcote

GS: Do you think your studio space affects your work?

KC: No. I've always had to work in public spaces that I use for multiple things. I'm always moving my

things. If I have a project that needs a small space, I go to a small space … if I'm outside, I've got my

whole studio in my car. Right now we need a lot more space so we are more settled.

GS: Do you think that your experience at the Studio School informs your art practice?

KC: My time at the Studio School was a fight for me, as I’ve always been an average person in a

competitive learning environment. I didn’t really care about the degree we were there for, so I stuck to

myself and tried to work out some of the gaps in my training. It was made clear to me who I was not,

but it took running a non-profit to figure out who I am as an artist. I resisted the formalist training, and

deep heritage in the abstract expressionist movement. I was painting figurative realism then, but being

taught concepts of abstraction and color field painting. My time at the NYSS prepared me with a high

level of self discipline, but that also comes from my family’s work ethic.

GS: Are you drawing regularly?

KC: Yes, but I'm almost always drawing from imagination.

GS: Is that for yourself or is it usually related to a project you're working on?

KC: Usually for a project, although I do have a private body of work that I've been making over the

years but I just haven't shared it.

16

GS: Would you ever think of sharing that work?

KC: I would consider sharing it. I mean there's personal content. I have epilepsy, so I have changes

going on in my brain all the time. There are lots and lots of drawing about that that I've made over the

years.

GS: When were you diagnosed with epilepsy, Katherine?

KC: When I was about four. My whole life.

GS: Are you able to control it?

KC: Actually yes, only eight months ago I had my second brain surgery where they took out scar tissue

from my brain. So when you ask about how is it personal to how I see, well I'm having a lot of

changes, I've lost half of the vision in my right eye. I lost color reception, so I have blue and gray on

that side but I have a higher density of vision in my other eye. I've been making paintings about that.

Drawing about euphoric state of mind. Photo Katherine Chilcote.

17

GS: So it's about how to see?

KC: Yeah, because I lived with that my whole life. A lot of the paintings I made in graduate school

were about that and nobody talked about content at the Studio School, so people there didn't even know

that about me. I made paintings about it for years. I have a whole private body of work just about that. I

don't know where that will go or if that will just stay with me. I'm not sure.

Episodic dream drawing. Photo Katherine Chilcote.

GS: You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but was the Studio School helpful to you when

you were a student in dealing with your epilepsy?

KC: You know, it's an interesting question. When I came from Indiana University, even though it was a

formalist school, people were very active in exploring their own content in their work. I had been

around their masters program the whole time I was in undergrad, so when I went for an MFA at the

Studio School I had very high expectations for myself. I wrote a proposal to Graham to delve into

18

exploring my own life experiences of living with epilepsy in a body of paintings. I remember sitting at

his desk talking about the proposal and that kind of intimate relationship just wasn't available. I

remember being asked by someone in the office if I was going to be safe in the school. There was this

cutoff point and it's just an ingrained problem because epilepsy is something that there is a lot of fear

surrounding and it's so common. It's more common than so many other diseases but people are still sort

of phobic of it.

GS: Can you give me an idea of how common it is, among say 1,000 or 100,000 people offhand?

KC: I know that one in every 26 people will experience seizures in their lifetime. Autism is one in

every 110. Everybody knows about Autism these days. Epilepsy affects your mental capacity so people

are afraid of it. It changes your ability levels. I'm very familiar with being very able bodied but also

disabled. I've fluctuated between those identities. I have a lot of work that is about that.

GS: I think that would be a great body of work for a show.

KC: Yeah. If you know of a gallery.

GS: I know one, at the Studio School, that should be interested.

19

Visitation, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches, 2005. Photo via New York Studio School.

GS: What artists are you looking at these days?

KC: Lately, I’ve been looking at political propaganda art and newspaper photographs about the labor

strikes of 1919. I look to this work just for information. I have been looking at the forms in Egyptian

frescos and the drawings of Paul Klee. I mainly look to poetry, fiction and go swimming for

inspiration.

GS: Are you looking at the actual photographs or is it all computerized these days?

KC: No, I've actually been in the library looking at microfiche and original photographs, because I'm

painting a lot from a period of time and capturing that. The mural I'm working on right now is about

events that occurred in the 1850's, so I'm trying to get the history down. I'll often go to those sites, so

that's one way I actually find mural sites … I'm always collecting piles of photographs for subject

matter, and then I'm finding the sites that relate to them. I'm finding all the sites that used to be loading

docks in Seattle. And they're still loading docks.

One of the subjects in the mural is those first strikes when people were protesting for a ten hour day,

because they were working 16 hour days. They were unloading all day. They were Irish immigrants.

20

Beyond the Storm, mural at The Epilepsy Association, Cleveland, Ohio, 2014. Photo via Katherine Chilcote.

GS: How do these artists influence your work?

KC: The poet Rumi influences my work a lot as an informative way of thinking about my relationship

to the world.

GS: Do you have any other projects you're thinking about for the future?

KC: I have four murals that are in the pipeline and a large one for the AFL-CIO that is in process. I’m

always looking for new sites. You can see the ones in process on my website.

I've also started doing drawings for a project that started a year ago called “Tents of Hope.” With all the

stuff that's going on in Syria right now, I'd actually like to be doing murals and shipping them to Syria

in the form of tents, so that there is sacred space available. That's one thing I would really like to do

right now. I'm trying to work with a couple different missionary groups that are doing relief effort there

to provide those tents. I just want to be able to be making sacred spaces. Sacred spaces of high quality,

that are creative and bring some peace of mind because they're beautiful. That project is just in its

infancy.

GS: Can you give us a little technical information about how you make the murals? Do you start from a

cartoon or from a developed drawing of some sort? Then do you blow it up?

KC: I started working more in photoshop but I mostly work by hand. I do a full color rendering, a color

drawing. Public art is different in that you have to be approved by the city planning department and all

21

of your councilmen and the community at large before you begin making the work. Because you need

to know you're going to have the wall. There's a lot of review process and presentations of the work

before it's even made. So that's really different.

Presentation Drawing of second wall for Washington State Labor Council. Photo Katherine Chilcote.

Second wall in progress for Washington State Labor Council. Photo Katherine Chilcote.

KC: It is difficult, because I had parts rejected and parts accepted.

I draw and I do painted models. I do hand models first and then I do renderings using photoshop as

well. I often have to show how it will appear on a wall so I'll do a full installation rendering and give it

to the councilmen, city planning or whatever. But things changes as they're being made. It depends how

closely I'm working with the client versus works that I've funded on my own. I have some works that

are completely independent and I try to stick with those as much as possible because I know you can

get yourself mind-washed only doing commissioned work.

GS: How do you blow up the drawing for the wall?

KC: I have one right now that is really big and two people are working with me. We have to square it

off, graph the drawing, transfer it and deal with the point of perspective as well because it is being seen

from the street, so the bottom of it is 24 feet up. We're not skewing it like Michelangelo, but we're

thinking very carefully about the sizes of everybody.

GS: Are you adjusting the image by hand?

KC: Yeah, because it is figurative and we can't be doing small scale figures … People who are seeing it

22

are in traffic at stops, so you're thinking about those points of view. You're very outside your own point

of view. Not just how to review your work but technically how it fits the space.

First wall completed for Washington State Labor Council. Photo Katherine Chilcote.

Conclusion

GS: You've been incredibly generous with your time, I appreciate it, Katherine. Do you have any

advice for people who are thinking of studying in the New York Studio School MFA program?

KC: Find a funder for your tuition. It's expensive now, but well worth it. It is far beyond any education

you would receive at a state school or private well-established graduate program. The intentions of the

teachers are authentic and the Studio School is one of the only environments where the artists who

come to teach are not trying to climb the ladder of academia themselves. There is a family tree of

artists rooted in the Studio School whose souls you’ll come to understand when drawing there, and

there is no other place like it. Folks do need to remember it is an American school!

23

Photo Gus Chan.

GS: Was there something you would have liked to have that wasn't offered, that may have been

available in other MFA programs?

KC: There was certainly a shortage of space and infrastructure. You can go to a state school and have a

lot more in terms of facilities. I put that aside when I chose the Studio School because the people were

so valuable to me.

GS: When you're not making art, what are your other interests?

KC: Christianity, hiking, swimming and taking care of family members.

GS: Do you have any other thoughts about the Studio School MFA program?

KC: I remember Jessica Smith, in the office, telling me the day I entered the school, that great artists

are trained here because they leave their ego at the door. I hope someone still says things like that to

new students.

24

GS: Do you have a website, Katherine?

KC: My personal website is www.katherinechilcote.com. Building Bridges' website is

www.clevelandmurals.org.

GS: And if people want to make donations to your non-profit, can they do that there?

KC: Yes, there's a place to do that on the website, www.clevelandmurals.org.

GS: Is there anything you would like to add?

KC: The school had many artists go through it as teachers or students, who may be at risk of not being

remembered. When I was doing work study in 2000, I cleaned out lots of closets full of art work that

had been donated for auction, but never picked up. I archived that work with the librarian. I found

these Rosemary Beck drawings in the studio walls. We mustn’t let history disappear. Many of the

students don’t even know how much history they are standing on, and we should all be very proud of it.

GS: Thank you, Katherine.

25