We recently connected with K.T. Tauches and have shared our conversation below.
K.T., thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Nature is my well. Whenever I feel challenged or overwhelmed, I go outside and put my feet and hands on the ground. I’ve always managed to set up wild garden areas near my studio spaces. Though my current studio is in a dense, intown neighborhood of Atlanta, it’s surrounded by empty lots on either side. I tend both, planting wildflowers and herbal allies…It’s my everyday pleasure to walk and work in those areas, which helps me to remember what’s most important in life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I spent most of my “career” in service to the Fine Arts through the conventional systems of Gallery, University, and Art Institutions. First, I was a designer, working in this niche area of the Arts, branding, and creating identity design for places of status and power within my local Arts communities. Then I moved into exhibit design and curation, which merged my skills of creating images with my ability to work in the material world of space, light and color.
I was like so many “art workers,” living a double life as a practicing artist, but making my living serving others with a large portion of my energy. I found the whole Art (with a capital A) system to be a tricky pyramid structure that supported the most aggressive, privileged, & narcissistic people at the top. While lots of people within this system were aware of how it worked and who it favored, most of us found few alternatives as artists in society. So, I acted practically for 30+ years and made the best of it.
To counter-balance burnout as a worker in the Arts, I was very active with my body in the physical world–always gardening, adventuring in the empty spaces of the city and outlying rural areas, cooking, studying, making rogue graphics & videos, writing, organizing outlandish artist-initiated projects, and practicing my version of magick (spirituality). I experimented with what I personally made manifest in the world, since by not engaging in the Art Market, I was free to do it any way I pleased.
Fast forward to 2020. Like so many people, the pressures of COVID rapidly collapsed my professional world, which had been crumbling miserable from the inside for over a decade. Privately, I had been working in ceramics for years, enjoying the medium more as a medicine, as opposed to a career. But because my official job as a Creative Director at a commercial gallery became untenable–so completely out of alignment with my values–I quit without a plan. Pottery was the only thing I could tolerate doing on a daily basis. So, I just went for it as a business.
And that was three years ago. I used most of my savings, and took serious stock of my assets, ultimately finding a way to open my own art institution: House of TAU. I now set the tone for my creativity. House of TAU is my personal studio that I partially share with the community. On the functional side, I produce ceramics for food, plants, and ritual. Pieces are often hand-painted with designs from my dreams, my ancestors, my connections to plants, herbals, and animals. I work with other potters, coaching, teaching and firing as a collective. And, as I am establishing a baseline for a long-term business (I’m now making the same living as when I was a curator & designer : ), I plan to branch out into other programs, including archives, ZINES, workshops, study groups, and lectures.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. What are the appropriate boundaries around my creativity and how I serve others with my gifts? I learned to establishing which and how much of my personal skills, knowledge base, and talents I need to sell to make a living, while honoring what it takes to keep the joy of life flowing.
2. Always maintain a modicum of privacy! I value what I need to do to honor the spaces, people, and personal practices that support my inner world. This is the ultimate resource which feeds my sense of hope, inspiration, spiritual interconnectivity and ultimately fuels my desire to make art in the first place.
3. How can I stay attuned to the good energy —having a positive attitude and being around people with whom I resonate is key to doing the impossible.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
They gave me my own room, and let me shut the door, at least occasionally.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.house-of-tau.com
- Instagram: @house_of_TAU
- Other: www.ktauches.com, www.ancestorseeds.org
Image Credits
K.Tauches
