Kristina Stafford

About the Artist

I look. I draw. I decorate. I am a maker at large, a bona fide Yankee. I miss winter, and I can’t spell.

Kristina Stafford holds her MFA in Ceramics from the School for American Crafts, Rochester Institute of Technology, with a minor in small metals and earned her BA in Art with concentrations in both Craft and Fine Art from BSU. She currently lives in Lakland, FL and works as Professor of Art at Polk State College, teaching Design and Drawing while maintaining an active studio practice that includes both sculptural and functional ceramics and most recently paper installations. Prior to Florida, her experiences have included: Education Coordinator at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia SC, and Visiting Professor of Art at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, MA, and Artist-in-Residence at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, NY.

My studio practice is a slow rotation of processes.

I explore and utilize a wide variety of mediums. I have three basic states of process: looking or collecting, planning or designing and finally making. When I look and collect I explore resources from the internet to antique stores. I gather images as well as objects. I never truly stop looking, but when I feel satisfied with my current findings I begin to draw. I sketch out surface designs and forms in full color and often several times before I make a single object. Drawing and painting allow me to experiment with color and pattern in way that feels less permanent giving me total freedom to explore.

Making work is most satisfying when I have a precise plan - I feel more joy and confidence in the creation. My designs are often complicated and layered to create surfaces I have practiced on and with paper. I enjoy watching my images come to life on clay as a sculptural canvas and most recently as large scale paper installation.