Staff Picks: Potters, Porridge Bowls, and Pastries as Existential Truths

Kathy Butterly, Yellow Glow, 2018, clay and glaze, 6 1/2″ x 9 7/8″ x 7″.

There are several things I miss about living in Louisiana, one of them being its proximity to Mississippi and the strange wonder of the , the Frank Gehry–designed pottery museum across the street from the Gulf in the south of the state. There resides a permanent collection of George Ohr, the Mad Potter of Biloxi, an artist who did strange and amazing things with form (some critics say he anticipated abstraction), wonderful and wonky things with color (see the shimmering multicolor glazes), and generally elevated mud into fine art. Lucky for me—lucky for all of us within spitting distance of West Chelsea—Kathy Butterly’s ceramics are on display  through October 20 (with an artist talk this Saturday). Citing Ohr as an influence, Butterly takes familiar forms—she starts by pouring clay into casts made from store-bought vessels—then she smashes