Nancy's Beans
Nancy's Beans
Artist
Kathy Butterly
(born 1963)
Date1996
MediumPorcelain, earthenware, and glaze
Dimensions5 1/4 × 3 1/2 × 3 1/2 in. (13.3 × 8.9 × 8.9 cm)
ClassificationsCeramics
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Purchased with the Fund for Craft, 2024.22
Signedinscribed on bottom of vessel: Kathy / Butterly / 1996
Accession number
2024.22
On View
On viewLabel TextKathy Butterly’s ceramics don’t need to be large to make a big impact. Uplift and Nancy’s Beans playfully command your attention with their riotously colored globs, blobs, chambers, and nooks. Contorting traditional ceramic forms into charismatic characters, Butterly has “long-term relationships” with her works. Months pass as she squeezes, squishes, and shapeshifts a tiny sculpture to find its distinctive personality, adding unexpected appendages and decorative flourishes as “wild-card elements” that build their unique personas. With whimsical details and technical expertise, Butterly’s pieces confound expectations of what ceramics should be.
Las cerámicas de Kathy Butterly no necesitan ser grandes para causar un gran impacto. Sus esculturas Elevación y Los frijoles de Nancy llaman la atención de forma divertida con sus formas, manchas, cavidades y recovecos de colores vivos. Butterly, quien transforma las formas tradicionales de la cerámica en carismáticos personajes, mantiene una “relación duradera” con sus obras. Durante meses aprieta, aplasta y transforma una pequeña escultura para encontrar su personalidad distintiva, añadiendo apéndices inesperados y adornos decorativos como “elementos impredecibles” que construyen sus personalidades únicas. Con detalles fantasiosos y experiencia técnica, las piezas de Butterly confunden las expectativas de lo que debería ser la cerámica.
