Last week, I joined Kathy Honea in her art studio to launch a new series, Ways of Making, which platforms how local artists think within the community. Honea is a distinguished artist with a long history across the Valley’s art institutions, including Carbondale Arts, the Art Base, the Aspen Chapel Gallery, the Aspen Art Museum and Anderson Ranch.
It’s important to note that Honea is also a highly accomplished collector of oddities and trades. One corner of her studio holds 70 pounds of beads while another contains at least a dozen varieties of scissors, each awaiting its precise moment. There are sections for troll dolls, kintsugi (broken pottery restored with inlaid metals), tin foil run through a dishwasher (precious), hand-bound books and more. There are treasures everywhere.
Asked how she navigates all these materials, Honea said: “I walk in the door, something catches my eye and my imagination takes it from there. How can I put this bike on that rock? Because my supplies are organized, I know where to find the next quirky thing I need.” Pointing to another section — “This pile hasn’t found a home yet, but I mean, who isn’t going to put that fabulous little item with something else? I’m all about adding bling and glitter and, of course, including some miniature oddity.”
In Honea’s studio, objects feel as if they are waiting for their big break. It has the charged atmosphere of an L.A. coffee shop, humming with the potential energy of many aspirants chasing their dreams. When she showed me a copper scouring sponge she referred to as a nest, I asked what she was looking for in its egg. In a Seussian turn, Honea replied, “I don’t know if I need an egg — maybe I will use it as a hat.”
Honea grew up in a family of practicing artists. Her grandmother was an oil painter, and her mother was a painter turned photographer who later worked in the photography department at Anderson Ranch and served as an early beta tester for Adobe and Apple. Before turning fully toward art, Honea’s own early career revolved around horses which she bred and rode professionally, as well as work as a commercial ski model.
Art became a prominent part of Honea’s life after a friend returned from Chicago with an enormous cache of beads salvaged from an attic. As Honea recalls, “My first response was, ‘Wow, these are gorgeous. What are you going to do with them?’ And she looked at me and said, ‘What are we going to do with them?’”
Not long after, Honea began gaining traction making beaded objects like hair ornaments, with commissions growing organically. This momentum overlapped with what she describes as “a little ad in the paper for the [Aspen] Art Museum that was just starting out.” It said “Local’s Show.” Honea continued, “I thought, ‘Oh, too bad — I don’t have fancy barrettes to put in there.’” Then she thought, “ I have this old shoe form.” She covered it in rhinestones and, once finished, decided to submit it.
From there, an opportunity for a solo show followed. A friend from the arts council, compelled by the work, offered Honea an exhibition just months later. At the time, she remembers having exactly two beaded shoes and a banana. After negotiating for more time to prepare, she dove headfirst into full-time making.
Honea worked extensively with beads as a visual language for over 20 years. Around 2003, she decided to pivot and explore new mediums. As she recalls, “The galleries I worked with were successful with my beaded work but were not interested in anything else. Okay by me I was ready to explore using all kinds of unusual materials – bits and pieces from many collections. This frequently required taking a class to learn the craftsmanship that would build my idea to fruition. All this experimenting led to a storage problem.
Now, hand-bound books with a little skull inside live with model train figurines and bowls made from vinyl records. “I fill them with grapes, or other funny things and give them to people.” One sculpture titled “Nobody knows the Truffles I’ve seen” is made from little toy pigs. Looking at the mass of objects and collected oddities that now populate her studio, I asked Honea whether the artist is shaped by the archive they keep — whether the accumulation of ideas and materials is, in fact, the core of the work.
“Maybe,” she said. “One thing I read was ‘we are what we don’t throw away,’ and I thought, uh-oh. This is very telling.”
If some artists hone their craft like surgeons developing precision within a narrow niche, becoming specialists in a single operation, Honea is instead a pharmacy, equipped for any malady. She guided me through one example of her process using tin foil.
“There’s a great thing you can do with tin foil. When you run it through the dishwasher and you get this wonderful surface for a substrate, then you put a transfer on it,” Honea points to another piece, “you make an oil pastel of a nest with an egg in it. And it’s terrible, so you turn it upside down, glue on a mini spoon and googly eyes, and voila it’s a fabulous face with hair.”
On the accumulation itself, Honea reflected, “If I didn’t have all these interesting supplies on hand, my imagination would have no place to roam — I wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
After such a long career, Honea’s pieces live in many places. One particular nine-foot-long beaded hammershark “Beat Bait”, resides with a family in Santa Fe. Honea tells me they decorate it as a Christmas tree. Playfulness and accessibility mark the ethos of her practice. As a provocateur, I wanted to find tension in this delightful playhouse. Our closing exchange came after Honea explained her interest in pre-industrial rag paper books and their impressive craft and quality.
Mike: Can I catch you saying something snobby? What can you be difficult about?
Kathy: Craftsmanship. [She brings up a piece we saw together.]
Mike: But isn’t bad craft kind of exciting sometimes?
Kathy: Give me an example.
Mike: Like Van Gogh, his artist frames [referring to paintings like “Quinces, Lemons, Pears and Grapes” with nontraditional frames]. Awkward craft. But people treasure that willingness to make mistakes. I like a little craft heathenism.
Kathy: There you go. Now that is a treasure, and I will go along with you. You asked me what I am a snob about, and it’s craft. I do think most of what I make is so kooky that if it wasn’t well crafted, it would be off. Recently, I submitted a few works to a call for art, and this is the one I couldn’t believe they didn’t pick. [She refers to a work depicting a flamingo with a palm tree head.]
Mike: I love that. I can’t believe it either.
Kathy: It’s great, but it’s a limited audience.
Mike: Is there anything else that remains to be said?
Kathy: My message? Hmm. My whole philosophy is: Life is short, laugh a lot. It doesn’t have to be heirloom. I don’t make heirloom art. I’m just having a good time until I croak.