Kate Carr
1976 – 2017
Sculptor Kate Carr died in April 2017 at home in Santa Fe, of complications related to ovarian cancer. She was 40 years old.
Born Katey Elizabeth Carr in Anchorage, Alaska, Kate moved to Vermont in 1995 to attend Marlboro College. She had a lifelong love affair with the states of Maine and New Mexico, both of which she considered her adopted homes. It was in Maine in 1999 that she met poet Jenny George, then a student at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. They went on to make beautiful homes together in Mount Desert, Maine; Oxford, Iowa; Taos, New Mexico; and Brattleboro, Vermont, before settling in Santa Fe in 2007.
Kate received her MFA in Sculpture from the University of Iowa in 2005. Although her early work was marked by playfulness and wit, over the years Kate’s aesthetic developed into a patient, searching minimalism. She was influenced by modernist masters Eva Hesse and Agnes Martin, the latter of whom she spent time with on an early artistic pilgrimage to Taos. Kate loved and respected everyday materials—felt, wood, paper, thread—and let the forms of her sculptures be guided by the properties of their materials. Many of her pieces use repetition and juxtaposition to explore the qualities of line, the formal quality that most intrigued her. In her artist statement Kate wrote, “I look for line in the world. It has a rhythm, a hum. It both differentiates space and connects it.” Kate had solo exhibitions in New York, Dallas, Marfa, and Santa Fe. She received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2010, and was a resident artist at the Ucross Foundation, the Jentel Artist Residency Program, the Harwood Museum, and the MacDowell Colony. Her first New York exhibition, at Garvey|Simon Gallery in Chelsea, opened in October 2014.
I look for line in the world. It has a rhythm, a hum. It both differentiates space and connects it.
Kate brought the same contemplative attention she cultivated in her artwork to her yoga practice, which she undertook seriously in 2007. Mentored by teachers Melissa Spamer and Amy Spurlock, Kate trained as a yoga instructor, and taught for several years at Yogasource in Santa Fe. As a teacher, Kate was noted for her patience and kindness. She was committed to demystifying the practice of yoga for inexperienced practitioners, even as she herself progressed to higher and higher levels of proficiency.
In 2015, Kate traveled to Bali, a journey that profoundly transformed her life. In Bali, Kate experienced a way of living that integrated physical, spiritual, and artistic practice through devotional attention to everyday objects and gestures. In close contact with the vibrant natural world, and surrounded by a culture that cherished the beauty of simplicity, Kate felt deeply at home.
Donations may be made in Kate’s honor to the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, Palliative Care Services of Northern New Mexico, or Yogasource in Santa Fe, in care of the Kate Carr Scholarship Fund for Teacher Training.
—Obituary excerpted with permission from Jenny George.
Kate was featured in THE Magazine‘s October 2016 “Studio Visit.”
We invite you to view her beautiful work on her website, katecarrart.com.
