Kass O’Brien transforms her childhood memories into art. Growing up in Erie, Pennsylvania, as the sixth of seven kids, O’Brien spent most of her childhood on the water—either sailing, fishing, ice skating or riding her dad’s motorboat. Those outdoor experiences, combined with exposure to her mother’s career as a docent at a local art museum, fueled her creative spirit, which landed her at the Columbus College of Art & Design and then Cranbrook Academy for graduate school. “I came from a steel town, and my father had a steel company, and it was very monochrome,” she told Business of Home as she rolled out clay in her South Florida studio. “My art was super monochromatic at the time and basically, when I moved down to Florida, everything just blew up like a color explosion.”
O’Brien taught art at an elementary school in Palm Beach County while raising two young kids of her own. “My son and I would go out paddleboarding, and he would dive down and find things and bring them up and show me,” she recalls. “There was one time where he kept on bringing up [live] sand dollars, and they were a purple color. I always thought sand dollars were just white, but they were this beautiful indigo, and it really shaped me.” She opened her own studio in the late 2000s, quickly garnering the attention of designer Celerie Kemble, who began selling her pieces. O’Brien now operates studios in West Palm Beach and Lake Forest, Illinois, and sells her collections in stores in both of those states and online.
Finding a commercial audience for her art hasn’t changed O’Brien’s approach. The ceramist still channels her inner child when sculpting: “Every piece that I do is from a memory that I’ve had. [When I was little], my parents bought a boat on Cape [Cod], and seeing these barnacles attached mesmerized me,” she says. “Twenty years later, I’m making them on my pots.” Other pieces, like the Ginkgo vase, are inspired by her mother’s love of the trees; one pot resembles willow leaves from a childhood neighbor’s yard. “It’s really kind of boring throwing the same form every time, so I started embellishing it,” she says. “It’s been a learning process, and an extremely joyful process—frustrating at times, but mostly joyful.”
That design process begins with throwing forms on a potter’s wheel, waiting for them to dry, trimming that form, and then cutting shapes by hand for leaves and detailing. She’ll put the combined piece in the kiln, glaze it, hand-paint it, and hope for the best. “[There are] lots of happy mistakes or happy accidents. Sometimes they’re happy. Sometimes you just want to throw the clay against the wall,” she says. “Every time I open up the kiln—after I fill it with glazed pieces—it’s almost like Christmas. I get really, really excited when things turn out. The love of making is reinforced every time I open up the kiln.”
Looking ahead to her next collection, O’Brien is newly inspired by the croton leaf, which you will find on the logo of “every cheesy condo in Florida,” she says. “If you look at the leaves, they’re almost like fingerprints, and they’re all different colors. I have a wall in my studio that’s all [ceramic] croton leaves. It’s kind of funky, but I’m getting into those.”
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Whether her inspiration comes from a willow tree, a barnacle, or a leaf she spots on a neighboring apartment complex, she’s going to continue doing what she loves: creating pieces formed by cherished memories. “A lot of people are like, ‘Oh, you’re an artist. It’s your hobby.’ No, this is my vocation. This is what I do for a living. This is what I am. I really like to prove [that] to people that don’t think that you can make a living off of what you love,” she says. “I am an extremely happy person because of what I do, and I hope that when people come into my studio, they see that happiness through my work.”
For more information on Kass O’Brien, check out her website and Instagram.
