Spinning Plates
Me & Dad! Note the rainbow sleeves on my shirt…
My dad is an architect and was the design partner in his firm when I was growing up. Occasionally, I would go to work with him on early release days or days off of school. I remember playing in the back of his office with all the tile samples and giant sets of prismacolor markers. I would build little worlds on the shelves where they kept office supplies. There were walls covered in tile and counter samples, and binders full of carpet and fabric swatches. I was a kid in a candy store.
One of my favorite things to do was play with the electric erasers. I realized that if you turned them up so the eraser was pointing up, the clean white eraser became a little potting wheel that I could use to make miniature dishes. I would carve out little bowls, plates and cups with exacto knives and then color them in with the markers while the makeshift electric potters wheel was still spinning. It was always so much fun… until I got caught chopping the clean new erasers up into little bits by someone in the office. It was harmless fun, but from what I remember they weren’t too pleased with my creative waste of supplies, lol. It is fun to think that those little eraser dishes were my first taste of product design!
Electric eraser, in case you aren’t familiar.
Modern studio reproduction of a tiny plate and bowl.
Recap of 2022 – My Year of Play
In 2022, I focused my energy with one guiding anchor – PLAY. I've tried to do this before, but was never able to narrow it down to just one word. I think in 2021 I had four, slimmed down from years past. I knew that wonderful, magical things can come out of play. I lept in hoping that joyful work and new opportunities would arise if I leaned in and followed my curiosities. In my notes I said my goals for the year were to have fun, define my style, learn and grow.
While I avoid most structure (hello artist and entrepreneur, lol) I find that having some sort of framework and parameters to create is key. I decided to choose a monthly focus under the play umbrella to offer some guide rails. I had wanted to create a deck of cards for several years and it seemed like an excellent goal to have as a takeaway for the year of play, so that set me on my path forward. Here is how the year went:
Jan: Hearts
Starting with the heart (and drawing heart suitmarks) seemed a fitting and centering practice. It also gave me a collection of artwork to create Valentine’s postcards that I was able to offer up for sale in February!
Feb: Spades
I knew I needed to be creating lots of artwork that I would be able to use in the deck of cards, so for the next few months I chose a suit a month and tried to make at least 5 pieces a week.
March: Diamonds
Again, taking steps towards creating that deck of cards.
April: Clubs
Clubs were the intended focus, but ended up pausing on the cards to allow me to create proposals for mural projects.
May: Deck of Cards
I started to pull together all of the suitmarks I had made to date and am working to see how things fit together and evolve. I knew it would take time to sort through the art and figure out how the puzzle pieces could fit together.
June: Story, Call & Response
I spent this month carving out time to play in the studio and in the garden. Both are an investment of energy with unknown destinations – a leap of faith that something beautiful will grow in time.
July: Shape & Rest
I worked on my artswatch project as a way to focus my creative energy. Things tend to go off the rails a little in the summer for me without the structure of the school days. I took a bit of time to rest and recharge before some mural projects and gathered info on playing card producers.
August: Product Play
In preparation for the holidays, I used this month to do a call and response with my newsletter friends – creating mockups of products and reaching out for feedback. This month was also crunch time to finalize the deck of cards. I made two alternate decks (three total) and reached out to a small group for design feedback. Also started moving into my studio space for my residency at Hunt Gallery.
September: Mural painting
I finalized my deck design, sent it to the printers and opened pre-orders in my shop. Painted the Title IX mural at UB. Packed and shipped card orders. It was a busy (and stressful) month!
October: Residency & Holiday planning
This month was full of preparation for holiday pop-ups, and diving back into a studio art practice through the residency at Hunt Gallery. Also started some new bodies of work that I’m excited about.
November & December: Pop-ups, and online sales, Residency
While I was in the holiday hustle and not playing much in the studio I thought a lot about ways that the year of play could translate to mindset. A lot of my work appears bright and cheerful, but I take the work super seriously and can be really hard on myself. I often overanalyze and spin my wheels on taking big next steps. I focused on giving myself grace and leaning into opportunities with a sense of exploration and playfulness.
Lessons learned: Play was a stellar word for me in 2022. I am so prone to overthinking things and getting stuck before even starting… but having play as my anchor gave me a sense of lightness to not take myself too seriously. It is great to have a plan, but I’m learning time and time again that when I complete a goal it often looks different than expected. I had hoped to pitch a lot of licensing projects, but ended up focusing more on looking for more art and mural projects (and getting that residency!). I played with saying yes to opportunities that popped up and tried out several holiday pop-up shops over the course of the year. I even played with being more business-y and got up and running on QuickBooks.
When I started this year of play, I thought that sounds so fun! But, wow… play can be WORK. It is hard to play. We don't live in a culture that really values grownups having playtime. We are so primed to be constantly productive. It seems so ironic that I'm working to make time for play – to allow my mind to wander. My creative well is expanding, growing deeper and more fulfilling, and that feels exciting and worthwhile. The reward was huge. I’m especially grateful for the sense of lightness and flexibility in how I am approaching work/art/play moving forward.
xo!
Hunt Residency "Verge" Opening
Installation for our group show Verge started yesterday at Hunt Gallery! I snapped a quick photo of two of my pieces before I had to duck out, but would love to see you at the opening this Friday from 5-9PM! Above on the right is one of the pieces included in the show, and the start of a new series titled Ways to Grow 1.
About the show: Hunt Residencies II opening reception for the group exhibition Verge will take place January 13th, 2023. Verge will showcase the artwork completed by the six artists that entered Hunt Residencies studios in August 2022. Work by resident artists Avanna Duff, Eugene Sims, Laura Valkwitch, Cassandra Ott, DJ Carr, and Nicholas Wheeler are taking over the main gallery. The evening will also introduce the arrival of seven new artists in residence for the third cohort of Hunt Residencies. The exhibition will be on view through February 10th, 2023.
Images above by Spicy Creative
‘Public art is my sport of choice’: The story behind UB’s Title IX mural
I opened up for an interview with Alex Novack of The Spectrum (the independent student publication of the University at Buffalo) this past October after the installation of my Title IX mural on campus. I enjoyed talking to Alex and there are a few things that surprised me after reading it… but I think he did a great job and I wanted to share the article here.
By ALEX NOVAK
October 26, 2022 | 9:44pm EDT
The sidewalk outside the entrance to Alumni Arena is exploding with pops of color.
This eye-catching mural, the latest installment in UB’s “contemplative sites” initiative, commemorates the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools and education programs.
“The prominent location will be a constant reminder to all who enter Alumni Arena of the importance of this initiative to the university,” D’Ann Keller, senior associate athletic director for Sports Administration, said in a statement.
Behind every “contemplative site” is the artist that brought it to life. Cassandra Ott, a Buffalo-area creative, worked tirelessly in both sweltering heat and bone-chilling cold to paint this celebratory vision into existence.
Using nine squares of the sidewalk, Ott dedicated a quadrant to each of UB’s eight women’s sports teams — which outnumber UB’s men’s teams, much to Ott’s surprised delight. The ninth quadrant pays homage to Title IX and unifies all of the individual squares into one cohesive mural.
“I’m not the sportiest person,” Ott said. “However, I realized in doing murals that it’s super physically demanding and I feel like that is my sport of choice at this point. So public art is my sport of choice.”
If public art is Ott’s sport of choice, it’s safe to say that she wasn’t always the MVP. When Ott painted her first public art piece back in 2019, it was only a small mural in a gallery. Drawing on a large wall was entirely outside of Ott’s skill set at that point; she had only worked with regular 11-by-14-inch size canvases. This was an intimidating transition for Ott, but she learned to enjoy painting murals.
The response to Ott’s first public mural commemorating the Elmwood Village Association’s Buffalo Garden Walk was overwhelmingly positive and life-changing for the fledgling mural artist.
“It was fun seeing people walk by and getting instant feedback,” Ott said. “They were really excited about the project, and they had a lot of questions. I really appreciate that public art puts beautiful things directly into our environment where people can live with them and interact with them. I find that super exciting.”
.”This newfound passion for this niche subdivision of her craft shines through in the Alumni Arena mural where Ott once again dove head first into the opportunity to share a meaningful message with the community.
Despite gaining more experience in mural painting since her first public art piece in 2019, Ott has still encountered new challenges this time around. For instance, she’d never painted a mural on a horizontal plane: the ground.
Ott says this was a completely different “can of worms” compared to anything she’d previously tackled. It opened the door to new obstacles such as debris on the ground, pesky falling leaves and anti-slip paint with the gritty consistency of pudding mixed with sand. These unforeseen obstacles and minor annoyances did not phase Ott in the slightest.
“Like anything, you just kind of have to take a bit of a leap, and there are so many ways that I feel like art is representative of life,” Ott said. “There’s only so much you can plan for. So at a certain point you need to take the leap and see if you can figure it out as you go.”
Ott doesn’t shy away from figuring things out as she goes in her life either.
As a child, Ott frequently visited the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts with her parents, both artists, who supported her creativity from the very beginning. She fondly recalls watercolor classes with dad and making glass beads with mom, but says a photography camp was central to her artistic awakening. She earned a BFA with a concentration in photography in 2001.
After graduating college, Ott took the summer with her now-husband to have one last hoorah before entering the workforce. With a world of adventure waiting for them, Ott and her partner booked their plane tickets to Amsterdam. The only problem: their flight was scheduled to depart on Sept. 11, 2001. After her plans for an unforgettable European getaway became unforgettable for all the wrong reasons, Ott experienced another tragic loss. In the following months, Ott’s grandparents passed away in a devastating plane crash. Her grandfather was flying the plane and her grandmother was his only passenger.
“Those two events really changed my universe,” Ott said. “I think about how time can be therapeutic.
Still reeling from these traumatic circumstances and the lack of a regular artistic structure that college provided, Ott did not produce any serious bodies of work for 13 years outside of graphic design jobs for her family’s glass dinnerware business. Eventually, Ott gave herself assignments to complete, and her creative flow returned with a vengeance. She painted on others’ old photographs that she had either purchased from eBay and second-hand stores or received from family, friends and acquaintances.
Through time, healing and self-determination, Ott was able to pour all of her talent into UB’s new Title IX commemorative mural. The mural’s celebration of inclusion and equality resonates strongly with Ott.
“In sports and in the current climate, there are a lot of people who have a lot of hurdles, unnecessary hurdles,” Ott said. “And there is such a giant lack of equality in our society, and I feel like anything that recognizes these hurdles or how far we’ve come is important to pay tribute to so that we can feel hopeful for making more progress. It’s important to commemorate and honor the progress that we’re making so that we can continue to make sure that everyone is on a level playing field.”
Studio Time!
Started in April of 2021, Studio Time! is a weekly virtual art making meetup that I host via Zoom.
It’s pretty simple… Here are the details:
Here is how it works...
It’s an hour and a half silent group art making session via video. A quiet time carved out in the week to work with a sense of camaraderie and community.
-We show up and connect (doors open 15 mins ahead of time if you are looking for extra creative community and conversation)
-We find our center and I start the clock
-We mute and we dive into our creativity!
-We have a solid 75 mins set aside to create
(work on anything... from sketchbooking, your current project or, that thing you keep avoiding and need accountability for...)
-We close by taking a moment to notice how it went, and plan the next step
This is a standing weekly meeting open to all Studio Time! friends (and friends of friends). If you know of someone you think would benefit, encourage them to join us. I would love to see you there!
If you are interested in joining us, please reach out below and I can add you to the weekly email reminder :)
