The American Scholar Profiles Karyn Olivier (MFA Ceramics 2001) on the Mutability of Materials
Installation view of “Bend, Break, Mend” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. (Photo credit: Timothy Johnson.)
The American Scholar just profiled Cranbrook alumna Karyn Olivier (MFA Ceramics 2001). Writer Noelani Kirschner traces Olivier’s path from a childhood in an immigrant family, where “the idea of someone being an artist was not in the program,” to her current solo show, Bend, Break, Mend, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
Olivier studied psychology at Dartmouth at her mother’s wish, even though art pulled at her. She spent her 20s and 30s working retail management jobs and taking continuing education classes. In 1999, she arrived at Cranbrook Academy of Art to pursue her Master of Fine Arts degree.
She came to study ceramics, but she felt “restricted by the limitation” of the material. A professor encouraged her to step away from it — and she found new inspiration at the hardware store.
More than two decades later, that shift still shapes her work. Olivier transforms ordinary materials — gypsum, fiberglass insulation, emergency heating blankets — into pieces that confront housing practices and humanitarian crises. One work, Powers of 10 (Home Kit), nods to the Eames documentary of the same name and comments on disposable modern construction. Another, Shelter, uses a thin aluminum emergency blanket — the kind marathon runners wear, the kind refugees use from Gaza to Sudan. “This material is so thin, so light, it’s like air,” Olivier says. “And it becomes someone’s shelter, comfort, and architecture.”
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