Assemblage
Kathy Kemp
kathy kemp
Address: 406 River Road, Westminster VT (may come up as Putney on GPS)
CONTACT kathy
Phone: 339-368-0349
Email: kkemp367@gmail.com
Website: kathykemp.onfabrik.com
Facebook: kathy.kemp.54
Instagram: kkemp367
HOW TO PURCHASE MY WORK
You may purchase my work in person, or by contacting me through my website or the contact info on this page.
Medium and Inspiration
I collect objects that have been used — worn, repaired, discarded. What draws me is physical: the profile of a form, the surface left by wear, the weight and scale of a thing relative to other things. Wood that has been worked. Metal that has oxidized. A shape that was engineered for a specific purpose and now carries the marks of that purpose without serving it anymore.
I find these materials through scavenging — estate sales, salvage, the side of the road. The search is part of the practice. You can’t substitute or order what you need; the material constraints are real, and they drive the work.
Artistic Approach
I work by arranging — placing objects in relation to each other and looking at what happens. The process is iterative and visual: something shifts, the composition changes, and I look again. I’m working with form, proportion, surface, and weight. How a curved element reads against a flat one. Where the eye goes. What a gap does.
The pieces aren’t built around narrative or theme. I’m resolving a composition — and I know it’s done when it holds.
Tone
Some pieces have a tension in them that isn’t quite resolved — a misalignment, an unexpected pairing, a form that doesn’t behave the way you expect it to. When two objects sit together in a way that’s slightly off, and that friction is what makes the piece work, that’s interesting to me.
Philosophy and Values
I’m drawn to objects that show how they were made or how they were used — a joint, a wear pattern, a repair. That history is present in the material without needing to be explained. The work isn’t about rescuing or preserving; it’s about finding what happens when these things are placed in a new relationship with each other.
Shutterfall
A set rhythm breaks mid-course; what was aligned slips into interruption.
I live and work in Putney, Vermont, where I maintain a studio practice centered on found-object assemblage. Before turning to art, I worked in geriatric healthcare — work that required close attention to what people carry with them, and what gets left behind. My husband and I settled in Putney several years ago. I show regionally through multiple galleries and venues, and I’m always looking for the next thing on the side of the road.