Kathleen Anderson

An award-winning artist whose work has exhibited on the national scene, Kathleen’s art, and craft background spans across seven decades. Throughout these years, she has created wearable items by means of needle knitting and sewing. Garments Kathleen has made or designed and constructed have appeared on national television, in yarn shops, on stage in a production at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and in her own wardrobe.

In the mid 1990’s an acquaintance introduced Kathleen to polymer clay. Since that time, she has been handcrafting limited edition and one-of-a-kind adornment pieces for women and men, eye glass boxes, key fobs, kaleidoscopes and her Original HeartBoxTM collection incorporating only the strongest, most durable translucent and opaque clay. Influenced by Pueblo, Navajo, Asian and West African art traditions, the process Kathleen uses to create patterns in clay is borrowed from the glassmaking traditions of millefiori and murrini cane work. Over the last four years Kathleen has been developing what has become her signature style, what she calls the “kdqCane”.

One year and a while back Kathleen went on a long walk with approximately sixty people. Walking across 14 countries over thirteen months at a rate of about 20 miles per day on the “Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage; Retracing the Journey of Slavery” Kathleen learned that craft-art is who she is. Until that journey, she always thought that craft-art is what she did. Now Kathleen strives to clearly bring her artistic voice into form, to discern and describe ” Historical Black American” as wearable and functional art.

With a Master of Education Degree Kathleen has over a decade of experience in elementary and secondary schools. In addition to 30 plus years as a trainer/educator of adults in business and academic setting, Kathleen is qualified to teach and has taught polymer classes for both adults and children.