BY Sarah Archer | February 7, 2010

Dining with Kathy Erteman

Kathy Erteman loves food, but for her it’s more complex and nuanced relationship than it is for most of us. As an artist who works in both two and three dimensions and a ceramic designer who develops pottery forms for industry, she has a unique combination of graphic sensibility and a practical understanding of how the form and texture of a plate or bowl can enhance the enjoyment of a meal. 
Her prints and ceramic wall pieces feature abstracted views of urban life – figures on the street may become oval forms, buildings and cars may become cubes and squares. In a sense, her tableware does the same thing but instead of abstracting the forms of daily life in New York, it draws on the color, texture and shapes of cuisine to create a dialogue between the vessel and the delicacy it contains. The food gives a dish its color and content, and a dish in turn gives the food a definition and context within a larger tablescape.
With the "slow food" movement drawing our attention to what we’re really eating, it seems that her approach to both designing and eating is just right for out times. “What will be served is where I begin,” she writes of her creative process, noting that she draws inspiration from the bold and decisive designs of the 20th century's greats, from Walter Gropius and Timo Saraponeva to Edith Heath and Russell Wright. The qualities that define her work - restraint, subtlety and an unambiguous use of color make the pots compelling standalone objects as well as the perfect containers for colorful ingredients from almost any culture.