I have a little studio I call Goth Box Ceramics

Lesley Katzen is a Seattle, Washington based ceramicist and sculptor. 

She works in decorative and functional stoneware as well as figurative sculpture. 

Her work takes inspiration and themes from funerary art, fable, and folklore. 

She aims to tell stories with her work that soothe those seeking permanence and stability. 

Group Exhibitions:

Thurston County Museum of Fine Art, Olympia, Washington, July 8th-15th, 2023 

Gallery Boom, Olympia, Washington, Ongoing

Artist’s Statement:

“et sum, quod digitis quinque legatur, onus”  -- Thomas Browne from 'Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial' 1658

I explore the well-tread themes of mortality in creating hand built jars in the style of mostly Western funerary art, Memento Mori and Vanitas.  

I find ceramics a very concrete way of working through grief in a way that can be quite childlike. I begin with a memory or a feeling that I can’t process - and so I aim to make it physical, to give it form and life and space, volume. I build and I scratch the feeling into a jar or a sculpture, I manipulate a molded face to be tragi-comic. 

My process, selfishly, serves as a balm. I create a vessel from a passive wet dirt to a thing which I believe to be worthy of three dimensions. 

This feels like real power in a world where we are often so powerless.

(oh and follow my clay specific insta at  gothboxceramics@)