Erica Kast

Artist Erica Kast (born 1978, Chicago) first put her hands into clay when she was only 5 years old at the Hyde Park Art Center. She remembers the teacher helping her center the clay, and slowly coax a little vessel from it. The piece still has a place of honor in her mother’s home today.

Kast has kept her connection to the clay medium throughout her life; a 5th grade ceramics class, instruction during her undergraduate years, at Lillstreet and finally at Lincoln Square Pottery Studio - Learning Center. She’s always come back to it because of its fluidity, and ability to be reworked into something else. Like her journey with clay, Kast has reinvented herself many times over to follow her interest in helping people as well as achieving peace through art and yoga.

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Kast wears many hats. One is as a yoga instructor teaching Koruna flow. The practice focuses on the body and its needs, and is less about the lineage of the yoga itself. Kast attended the Caribe Yoga Academy in Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica in 2018 and 2019. The nature that surrounded her there has had an impact on her ceramics. The duality of bright and dull colors, clear skies and thunderous storms are reflected in a lot of her clay pieces. The landscape around the Russian River in California (paddle boarding and kayaking) as well as the waterscapes of the Pacific Northwest (hiking) also seep into her aesthetics. The artist likes to use the brown stoneware clay and leave parts of it exposed through moody green and blue glazes. Some pieces look like bedrock or rich soil, with waves of color settling in its recesses.

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Kast’s education touches on art and psychology. She has a Bachelor of Arts in arts business management from Columbia College (2004), and a Masters in art management from Carnegie Mellon (2009). She’s especially excited to start her doctorate in psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology this September! She’s been a psychologist in a variety of school settings and gets great satisfaction in helping students. Her future plans include a degree that will free her up to work with people of any age in any capacity. Consulting as well as blending her love of yoga into a clinical setting is her dream.

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Kast joined LSPS-LC in 2015 after strolling past on the way to her mother’s home. It had been a few years since she’d touched clay, and it called out to her. Kast says it’s the studio she’s been looking for most of her adult life. The balance of professional and amateur artists and the smart and funny people that pepper the studio’s classes is what keeps her coming back. She started in the beginner wheel throwing class, moved to hand building and is now settled on the Intermediate class on Tuesdays to fit her busy schedule. Kast connects better with hand building because it fits her personality and vision much better. She’s still on the wheel, enhancing her technique about a third of her class time.

The artist has had a few pieces that have made her proud lately. A fruit bowl made of flowing loops (resembles octopus arms) that touches on the contrast of delicate and strong. The piece came to fruition after she attempted several lattice tops for apple pies. She took that concept and applied it to her bowl (which worked out better than the pie top!). Kast has also been expanding a series of air plant holders that themselves look like foliage. Her home features dozens of plants (her own personal jungle), and her work blends right in with the aesthetic. Kast is always trying to capture her impressions of the nature on her travels through the pieces she creates. She really feels that clay is a strong connection to the earth, and it grounds and calms her. The process of taking the material from its raw form and exploring its movement and personality really keeps her fascinated.

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When Kast really thinks about her glaze color choices (and what hues she surrounds herself with in life), it always comes back to water. Growing up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, the artist spent a lot of time swimming and playing on the beaches near her home. Fun on the Wisconsin River at her grandparents’ cabin and time at the Michigan dunes clinched her connection. Water is so important in her life that when she and her partner go hiking there’s a 1-4 rating system. Kast realized she only gives out a 4 when there’s an element of water along the way.

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Even with her upcoming degree, Kast will continue to come to the studio to put her hands in the material that soothes her and resets her thinking. She hopes to explore more sculptural pieces illustrative of people and plants. Her phone is full of close-up images of leaves, and she’ll follow that thread in clay to see what appears. At current, the artist is taking on one of Instructor Meg Biddle’s class demos. The subject is a tulipier, which is an ancient vessel that can house individual tulips as a way to showcase each bloom. The challenge seems a perfect fit for Kast, who connects so deeply with nature.

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