Kirsten Stingle: ceramics and found objects

Kirsten Stingle’s use of a bundt pan drew me in, the pan now a skirt for her ceramic torsos. Maybe the whimsy made me look, but it is Stingle’s ability to tell a story through the sculptural details that held my interest. She mixes ceramics and found objects to create narrative figures, drawing on her background in theater to help the stories unfold.



In Renewal, pictured above, a young woman is holding an empty bird’s nest above her found-object skirt. Is the look on her face sadness, contemplation, or could it be something else? Look closely and you will see two baby birds resting on the back of her skirt. A nice reminder that Spring, a time of renewal and rebirth, has arrived. Perhaps her expression is one of quiet joy.





Her background in the dramatic arts led her to want to express common threads of the human experience. Stingle was working in the field of welfare policy in New York City when the events of 9/11 happened, which led to a shift back to her creative roots. Says Kirsten, “More than ever I wanted to break down barriers and expose the common threads of humanity through storytelling. This time, however, I turned to ceramic sculpture as a vehicle for my narrative impulses.

~From an article in Multi-Tasking Woman