Wheaton Conversations: 
Charlotte Potter & Kim Harty

Watch the Nov. 19, 2020 recording above

Kim Harty and Charlotte Potter Kasic are both mothers, makers, educators, and hold administrative leadership roles in their respective institutions. Their artistic practices have danced around questions of illusion, materiality, perception, and connection. They were both fellows at WheatonArts in 2008, where they collaborated with Rika Hawes to co-found the performance glass troupe The Cirque de Verre. Over the next decade, Harty and Potter have continued to work together on curatorial and artists endeavors nationwide. Currently, Kim Harty is the Craft Department Head at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. Charlotte Potter Kasic is the Interim Executive Director at the Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

In this conversation, the artists will focus on our present moment in time and how as creative minds, we are responsible for pivoting to best support the glass community and the next generation of makers who are learning in this formative era of virtual interface for the transference of tacit knowledge. They will discuss how, as an educational culture, we are shifting expectations and materials in the pandemic. As mothers, they will touch upon the uncanny nature of raising children amidst these unusual circumstances.

This event is part of “Wheaton Conversations,” a new virtual series highlighting select artists with ties to WheatonArts! To see the full schedule of conversations, Click Here. 

Charlotte Potter Kasic is an arts administrator, conceptual artist, and designer who has shaped her professional practice around her curiosity, passion, and enthusiasm about glass. She received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2010 and a BFA from Alfred University in 2003. Gravitating towards glass as a material and inspiration because of its ability to hold a dual identity – as hot and cold, fragile and strong, elastic and brittle – her works materialize as installation, sculpture, performance, and video. Charlotte’s work has been exhibited internationally at galleries, museums, and universities and is included in numerous public museums and private collections.

As an administrator, Charlotte was the founding Programming Director at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio and Executive Director of Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Waitsfield, Vermont. She has served on the Glass Art Society Board and was the 2017 Glass Art Society Conference’s co-chair in Norfolk, VA. Currently, Charlotte is the Interim Director at the Barry art Museum on the Old Dominion University campus.

Kim Harty is the Chair of Craft & Material Studies and Section Head and Assistant Professor of Glass at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI. Harty is an artist and scholar whose work investigates the connection between craft and performance through sculpture, installation, video, and performance. She is heavily informed by her training as a glassblower and is interested in undoing traditional methods of making and investigating how materials can confound their expected function.