Kit Grindeland (they/he) is a self-taught ceramicist who is slowly shaping a life out of clay after a decade in the theatre industry. Kit has been working with clay since 2021 and is currently in residency at the Steel Yard in Providence Rhode Island. Their work, which utilizes alternative firing methods, explores the connections between natural elements and magical realism. Grindeland’s functional wheel-generated forms and handbuilt architectural sculptures, stretch and tether the natural to the fantastical and explore the interrelation between the sweet and the bizarre.
Accompanying his studio practice, Grindeland has been teaching ceramics since 2023 and has worked with studios at Amherst College, Anyhow Studios, The Steel Yard, The Gordon School, and a self-procured studio in Western Massachusetts. Kit's work has recently been exhibited at the WaterFire Arts Center, The Providence Public Library, East Manning Projects, and the Warwick Center of Fine Arts. 

Dreams and visions through my image as a genderqueer person come together to form new realities. Utilizing a visual language consisting of clouds, sensorial appendages, and fauna, my work fabricates tangible worlds from the precipice of my imagination into clay forms. Each piece serves as an archaeological find and acts as artifacts that plant seeds of magic and wonder about the possibilities of the body and the present world that I occupy. Stories that I have steeped myself in since childhood come to life in clay form; cloud cities of the homes I want to live in, jars to store baby teeth, and masks of beings emerge and shape into new realities. These manifestations are adorned, colored, and explored through atmospheric firing methods and natural elements of the world around me. The chemical reactions that allowed humans to start creating permeance - community, local materials, and fire, fuel the making and influence the stories that are produced through my work.