Kate Budd

empty sac
pestle
bound ring
spoon & rest
spool
blossom
serpent spoon

2018
bronze
dimensions variable

(b. 1969 – Nairobi, Kenya) Delicately small and intricately detailed, Kate Budd’s minute sculptural pieces act as a catalogue of experience. Budd describes the works as “repositories for everything I have learned from being a human at this time and place.” The pieces are familiar—a spool and spindle, empty pea-pod, cowrie shell, and button—and their scale invites one to look closely while resisting the temptation to handle the exquisite and incomparable objects.

In this collection of works, Budd furthers her taxonomical exploration of the peculiar with a curious shelved arrangement of unlikely objects—wonderfully intimate “finds.” They may remind one of archeological discoveries of unknown origins, begging us to discern their original utilitarian contexts.

Budd received an MFA in Sculpture from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and a BA from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland. Her work can be found in several private collections and has been widely exhibited across the US, including at the Akron Art Museum, OH, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, and Rudolph Poissant Gallery, Houston, TX. She is a three-time recipient of an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. Budd is currently Associate Professor of Sculpture at The University of Akron.