Photo credit: Alan Weiner
interview by Maisie McDermid
Kathy Butterly, sixty-two, is one of forty-one women whose work is being showcased at The Grey Art Museum’s exhibition, Anonymous Was A Woman. The show celebrates the recipients of the grant, anonymously awarded to mid-career women artists living and working in the United States. Butterly’s ceramic sculptures—Heavy Head (2002), Chinese Landscape (2005), and Garter (1996)—are three of the 251 works on display until July 19, 2025.
Butterly, born in Amityville, New York, splits her time between New York City and Maine. “If I didn’t have Maine as an outlet, I don’t think I’d still be in New York,” she said over the phone from her home in Maine. Butterly did not come from an art family—one of the reasons she initially believed she would study interior design over an art like ceramics. But once she began studying at Moore College of Art and Design, where she met American sculptor Viola Frey, she discovered her passion for combining painting and sculpture. While she sipped juice from a wine glass and I coffee from a ceramic mug, we talked about the evolution of her work, her Anonymous Was a Woman grant, and the different functions of the interiors and exteriors of her lively sculptures.
MAISIE MCDERMID: When did you make your first sculpture? And what do your earlier works feel like to you now, compared with the works you’ve made in your recent career?
KATHY BUTTERLY: Technically, my first sculpture was at Moore College of Art. That’s where I got the bug to work with clay. It’s so interesting because I’m the same person. I’ve just experienced a lot. But when I look at the work, I know it’s mine.
I was really inspired by Marsden Hartley and George Grosz. These were my punk rock years, so my work was really kind of aggressive, like illustrative carvings and storytelling on the outside. Now, I don’t necessarily want to tell a story anymore, but I want to express the vibe of what’s going on in the world right now. I’ve evolved from describing ideas to just putting out a vibe. This is a feeling. It’s more condensed and more about abstraction. I’m tightening the parameters more and more. Right now, up in Maine, I’m trying to get rid of as much excess baggage as possible.
MCDERMID: How did it feel to present your work professionally for the first time at Franklin Parrasch Gallery, versus previously showing your work in classroom settings?
BUTTERLY: I was so excited. Franklin Parrasch had contacted me, saying he wanted to meet me. He asked if I could bring in a sample of my work, and I did. Then he offered me a show for the next month. And I was like, What? Yeah, there’s no way. He told me I should really think about it, so I went home and thought about it.
At the time, I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey, with my now-husband, then-boyfriend, Tom Burkhart. I was living illegally in an old factory building on a futon next to my kiln, and I would work as a waitress to earn money and teach summer camp for kids in Brooklyn. I thought, You know what? I’m just going to go for it. So I called him up, and in one month, I put together seven pieces. But I didn’t sleep. I literally slept next to the kiln. I actually brought one piece to the opening warm, like you could still hear the glaze crackling a bit.
MCDERMID: As the Anonymous Was A Woman Grant defines itself as an unrestricted grant of “$50,000 awarded yearly to fifteen women artists over the age of forty at a critical junction in their career,” how was 2002, the year you received the grant, a critical junction in your career?
BUTTERLY: Back then, the award money was $25,000, which is probably equal to $50,000 now. But you didn’t apply. Somebody nominated you, and they were anonymous. You had no clue you were being nominated, and then you had no clue you were going to get the award.
I had a one-and-a-half-year-old and a three-and-a-half-year-old, and I was at the park with them when my husband told me there was something on the answering machine. He was like, “You have to call this number.” I went to a pay phone on the street and called the number. I don’t remember who answered, but they said, “Oh, you’ve been awarded the Anonymous Was A Woman grant, and it’s $25,000 unrestricted.” And I just started crying. It was so important. I definitely needed the money, but it was also recognition of my hard work. And what came from this, for me, was monumental. After receiving the award, Laura Hoptman was curating the Carnegie International, and she invited me to be part of the international. It changed my life.
MCDERMID: Is there a community amongst the recipients of the Anonymous Was A Woman grant?
BUTTERLY: Before, there was not because we didn’t know who Susan Unterberg was. She remained anonymous until she revealed her identity. She then organized a picnic at Madison Square Park for anybody who had ever received an award. There were a lot of amazing women in the park that day—painters, sculptors, filmmakers, and photographers. It was the first time I ever met Susan Unterberg, so I slipped her a little note, like a thank-you note. After that, we got in touch, and we hung out. We’re friends now. I consider her a dear friend.
MCDERMID: Could you briefly walk me through your three pieces in the Grey Art Museum exhibition? Did you choose them, or did the curators request them?
BUTTERLY: The curators requested them. These pieces are all from around 2002 because they wanted to honor the period from when I got the award. They wanted to showcase Heavy Head (2002) because I made that piece right around 2002, which was right after 9/11. It represented the fear that was in my head—all closed up, not an open vessel. You know, having two children and living in the lockdown zone in lower Manhattan was terrifying.
The other pieces—Chinese Landscape (2005) and Garter (1996)—started from a pint glass shape. They’re from a very generic form, and what I try to do is cast it and then manipulate the form to find meaning in it. They’re kind of like my kids; they both came from exactly the same place, like me and my husband, my body, yet they’re so uniquely different. With Chinese Landscape, I was thinking about going somewhere other than being in my head; after 9/11, it was about going someplace else.
MCDERMID: I like the way you spoke about the gendered elements of your work in an interview once before. You said, “The works are an extension of myself. It’s from my point of view. Because they’re abstracted, I also think they’re open to interpretation. But, yes, they’re very female, and I’m proud of that. Especially starting out in the time that I did with ceramics.” Could you elaborate on how femininity appears in your work? What does that look like to you?
BUTTERLY: A lot of those early pieces were very fleshy and very sexual; it was when I fell in love with my husband. And I don’t believe in holding back. I just make what needs to be made. My thing is that we’re universal. Everybody has the same feelings; we just don’t talk about them.
Another thing that gets spoken about pretty often with my work is that it’s physically small. But when I’m working on it, it’s my universe—that four or five-inch area. It’s a metaphysical experience for me. That’s my world, and that’s my love affair. Or sometimes I’m having a fight with my work. But that’s the piece, and I have to make something that feels really right and genuine. I want my work to feel as though it’s supposed to be here, that it has every right to be here. It has to have an internal spirit to it, or, you know, a life force.
It’s so interesting to me—this idea of using a form, such as a vessel or cup. It’s a space unto itself. It contains space that’s nowhere else in the world. That’s its space. It’s part of our world, but then it contains its own world. And there are many times within a piece that I’ll really work on the interiors.
MCDERMID: This intrigues me—the interior of a piece. Usually, when looking at a sculpture, I focus my attention on its exterior.
BUTTERLY: With Garter and Chinese Landscape, oh, my goodness, they are equally about inside and outside. Chinese Landscape is luscious. There’s a pool of glazed water at the bottom. The green is all clay that I applied from taking a tiny pin and poking it like thousands of times, until it created what looked like moss. And then I glazed it.
So after 9/11, when my head was closed and the form was so closed and full of fear, I opened up. I felt like I didn’t want to be fearful; I wanted to expose everything. That’s when the insides of the vessels became as important as the outside.
MCDERMID: Your pieces to me feel very alive; I mean, the creation process of a ceramic sculpture itself feels very lively with the heat and reaction elements in the kiln. Can you tell me about how you feel life in your works? And how do you decide when a piece is finished?
BUTTERLY: Sometimes you just know when a piece is done, and it’s a surprise. I’m trying to fire my works less, but I’ve been known to do anywhere from 10 to 35 firings in the kiln. So, it’s an additive process, and it’s very intuitive. I keep adding colors until the piece feels right, or I’ll carve those tiny little beads. I don’t know if you’ve witnessed any of the beads, but there are these tiny, little beads that are hand-carved in place with a tiny pin. So it’s really labor-intensive, and it’s a labor of love. It’s meditation, in a way. In this world, I’m finding that sometimes I need something to focus on that’s just a bead, you know?
Up here in Maine, I’m getting ready for two shows. I’ve been up here a month and a half, and I’m just carving forms. I was working on nine projects recently at one time, and they all kind of have this conversation. There are different things to be done on different ones at different times. And I would find myself like, Is this done yet? You know, Come on, get it in the kiln. Let’s get ready for glazing. And then, in my heart, I’m like, No, I probably got, like, two more days to work on this. So then I would have to go into another one.
I’m not in a rush, why? What’s the point? The point is to be present and make something with intention and honesty—to go forward and learn more, to get fully absorbed into what I’m experiencing, and to give 100% to the piece I’m working on. To get it to the point of not needing me anymore because it has its own presence.