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. 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 locally exhibited at the WaterFire Arts Center, The Providence Public Library, East Manning Projects, and the Warwick Center of Fine Arts. They have also shown work regionally in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.

photo by Nadia Nazar

Artist Statement

My process frequently involves low and high atmospheric firing, in which I also use and rework local foraged and found materials in the firing process and as adornment for finished pieces. The landscape and ecology of the places I occupy become entwined in my sculptures, affecting and evolving the work with each new location. 

My work has been slowly uncovering a futuristic world of smog-tinted clouds repurposed for human use and the intrinsic folklore within those bounds. Cloud-like forms are built through a combination of coil and soft slab building, my fingers instinctively and patiently pressing and pushing dips and curves into the thin walls of the piece. These shapes exist somewhere between grounded landforms and transient nebulas - inspired heavily by shifting and seeding forms in nature and the kinetic possibilities they contain.  This current exploration delves into what will be treasured and valued in a world where the natural environment has been wiped out by human hubris, and all that remains is desert, smog, and remnants of a lush planet left behind.