Take Five with a 2025/26 Artist-in-Residence

The Umbrella Arts Center's Artist-in-Residence program has expanded for 2025/26, and we're pleased to welcome a cohort of five makers and educators to make something unforgettable with our resources and for our community here in Concord. In ceramics, Katie Fee has moved into a studio and begun working and teaching with enthusiasm this month. 

Katie Fee is a potter, studio manager, and material enthusiast in the Boston area, recently from Chicago, Illinois. she earned her B.A. in Studio Art and Geology from the College of William & Mary and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics. Since, she has zig-zagged across the country to participate in art communities, wood kilns, and projects- including time at UMass, Dartmouth, Mudflat Art Center, The Morean Center for Clay, Peters Valley School of Craft, Lillstreet Art Center, and TGS, LLC.

Katie grew up on her grandparents’ farm, and is inspired by memories of working, cooking, and exploring the landscape of wetland South Carolina. She also draws inspiration from her undergraduate Geology Studies and lived experience in landscape. She loves that ceramics marries seemingly separate worlds: simultaneously grounding us in the action of the earth, enhancing the architecture of our daily lives, and connecting us to our ancestors.

We "took five" with Katie in anticipation of her arrival, and are so excited to see what she creates this year...

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What's your earliest or most treasured memory of making art?
I don’t know if it’s the earliest, or even ‘art’, but what comes to mind is building bird houses out of 2x4’s and scrap with my Dad.  It started with ready made sets, but later we’d jigger a little building together out of scraps, and always finish with a different paint job.  He probably has 5-10 weather worn birdhouses in the yard and back porch still today.  As I became more capable, we designed more expansive bird houses. One of the last ones was tall and narrow- probably 3-4 feet long, and was a bird ‘motel’ with 5 or 6 holes and floors built into its front face.  We hung it along the length of a very tall water oak.  

What most excites you about your current projects or portfolio?
I’m usually most excited by the territory where there’s the largest proportion of surprise and uncertainty.  Right now, that’s most present in the digitally fabricated work I’m designing. I’ve been modeling CAD programs on my computer and using a CNC mill to fabricate through trial and error for a year or so now. I’ll start folding this work into my clay studio practice more in the next year. I love moments when a material or technology reports new information back to me — a surprise coming out of a kiln, or a prototype that comes out of the CNC mill in an unexpected way, for example. There’s this great quote from Anna Hickey-Moody,  “Matter can be inherently resistant, and can often teach us through showing us otherwise.” The resistance and ‘otherwise’ moments from clay, kilns, glaze, or digital models and wood, are what keep me inspired and drive the work forward.

Who do you most admire who is currently working in your field? (How does their work influence, inspire, or contrast with yours?)
This is an impossible question!  I have too many mentors, role models, and secret crushes in Ceramics and Design to pick one. Ceramic art is getting more attention in the art world and has more practicing artists than ever before, so I feel that it’s a super rich time to be making work.  I most admire artists who have a close dialogue with the material itself, whatever their medium is, and who seem to welcome change, risk, and unpredictability in their studio practice.  

What are you most looking forward to experiencing or accomplishing during your time as an Umbrella artist-in-residence?
For the past 2-3 years, I have been working full time with my art career on the back burner, so I am especially looking forward to the ideas that will ripen from being re-dedicated to my studio practice, amidst such a large community of makers. I don’t know what new concepts and objects will emerge, and I can’t wait to find out. On a technical note, I am looking forward to fleshing out my cone 6 glaze and soda kiln research, and to combine elements of flat-packed digital designs into my ceramic studio.  

What's your philosophy as a teacher of and/or ambassador for your art form? 
With so many technical obstacles to expressing one’s ideas in clay, one of my biggest goals as an educator is to ensure students understand the underlying principles of the process to navigate the material effectively. Every maker has their own vision, touch, and process, so I meet each student with fresh ears, and tailor guidance, exercises, and feedback to each individual.