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Cathy Terepocki | Episode 478
Cathy Terepocki has been working full-time as a ceramic artist for fourteen years. Cathy’s functional work and jeweler is sold in shops and galleries in North America and she has also developed a portfolio of one-of-kind pieces and conceptual projects. In the Spring of this year (2018) several of her designs were launched at Anthropologie stores Internationally. Cathy lives in Yarrow, BC with her husband and 3 children.
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Why is creativity so important to you?
It just feels like there is so much meaning in it. Or it feels like it gives my life my work meaning.
Do emotions show up in your work?
Yes, I don’t know how they couldn’t.
So let me ask you: What emotions are you shooting for?
I guess, I don’t know if I’m going to answer this exactly the way you want me to answer this, but I really feel like what is important in my work is human connection, maybe more than an emotion. I think that is part of the reason I make the work that I make and why I make work at is all because I really want people to feel connected to my work. I want them to enjoy using it, but it’s more than that. I like the idea of either, some kind of feeling of nostalgia or like sparking some kind of, I know that, or that reminds me of something. Because that is the work that I am always drawn to , even if it makes me laugh for a second, that is the work that really resonates with me. So even doing something like using commercial decals in a way that are unexpected to people and also there is some memory of you know, your grandma’s china or whatever, kind of mixed in there. For example the line of work I make with the floral decals on the bottom with the speckled clay, and just changing up the scale and using them in entirely different way and putting them on speckled clay when traditionally they would be on white porcelain. All those things kind of stop you in your tracks for a second and they might think, What is that? And also there might be a nostalgic feeling that you recall from a previous time and in that way I hope to make a little connection with people.
Why do you name your series?
Oh, I hate those names. I am so sick of naming. (laughter) I some how at one point started naming them after neighborhoods that I lived in. Or places that I have lived in that I have had some connection to. Just because it actually made it easier if there were names on things. But I wish I didn’t have to do it, it bugs me.
What do you like about your own work?
It’s kind of fun. I feel like I try to make work that is complex but ends up being simple. There is a lot going on if you actually look. You can see that there is four different layers, print and color added in four different firings. But the overall effect is unified enough that it’s simple.
You have wholesale, you have jewelry and you have so many different things going on. How do you price your work?
I price my work at a point where I feel like, I am considering my overhead, I am considering everything and I feel like, Okay it feels like I am paying myself a decent wage. I also really want it to be accessible to people. I want people to be able to have my work and I want them to be able to afford it. So I feel like for me there is a certain line. For me I am kind of fixated on the fifty dollar mark. I have never wanted to sell mugs over fifty dollars, just because it is a weird thing I am kind of hung up on. I don’t want them un-affordable. I also sell it in lots of different cities, and in some cities, like in Vancouver, I could easily sell a mug for fifty-five, fifty-eight dollars, and that is probably what I should be selling them for but I feel like in Whitehorse and Saskatoon, I feel like forty-eight dollars is more reasonable. The jewelry kind of balances that out. I can sell the jewelry for a little bit more than what it costs me to make it.
Do you know who your customer is and can you describe that person?
Thankfully it is a pretty broad range. I have sold a lot of mugs to eighteen your old dudes buying something for their mom or just appreciating it for themselves. And then to older women, older men, so I really appreciate that range. And it also depends on the line and depending on what they are buying. I think also that images have been something that have really connected with people. I think a lot of people are buying for gifts and part of the reason they are buying work with images on them is because it is hard to buy for somebody else and if people see a cup with a bee on it and and they go, Oh! My sister is a bee keeper, she loves bees. It is like another level of connection.
My last question for you is: What is your favorite color to work with?
Right now I am really trying to get a good green. I love green. I am actually trying to get a good green glaze and I find it really tricky. Part of it is the baggage that you get with that gross chrome green and trying to mix it to get something different. I also in a place where there is a million different shades of green. They are so inspiring.so, ya I am trying to develop the perfect green glaze.
Book
The Art of Travel by Alain De Botton
Contact
Instagram: @cterepocki