Kathy Lee

[offcntr]

I first met Kathy Lee at the UO Craft Center. I was just out of grad school, teaching beginning pottery, hand-building and sculpture, raku, and primitive/pit firing. She'd been making pots for a while at that point, having started taking lessons when her late minister-husband Clarence was doing research in Denmark. She continued in Minnesota afterwards, and came to the Craft Center when she moved to Eugene to be close to her daughters after his death.

She took some classes from me, raku and primitive firing, but wasn't really my student. We were more colleagues, trading tips and tricks, sharing techniques. We were also friends. Former midwesterners bonding over our love for Minnesota pottery.

She left the Craft Center before I did; she'd started selling at Saturday Market, sharing a booth with another senior potter, so needed a different studio. (The Craft Center was a hobby/enrichment shop; only the Resident Potters were allowed to sell their work.) She moved to Club Mud.

About a year after, my production job with Slippery Bank disappeared, and left me needing to start supporting us with my own pots. Fortuitously, Kathy's booth partner decided to retire from Market, so she invited me to share her booth. We shared good weekends and horrible ones for a couple years, at the end of which, she left the Market and deeded me the booth structure.

I joined her at Club Mud in 1998, where she continued to make quiet, beautiful pots for many years, selling them at home sales and the occasional gallery. Eventually, hand tremors made it impossible for her to continue working, but she continued as our second permanent emeritus member.

In 2019, she said she had some good news: Stanford University had been pioneering a form of brain surgery that would stop the tremor, although only on one side, and Medicare had approved her for the operation. We talked excitedly about researching one-handed throwing techniques, about her being able to work in clay again.

And then the pandemic happened. I didn't hear whether she'd gotten the operation, whether it helped. I was making plans to reconnect this spring, after I'd been vaccinated, when I learned from a friend at her church that she was in hospice care, with an aggressive brain tumor. She couldn't have visitors, but her daughters were reading her letters in her lucid moments, so I sent her a note, telling her how much I've loved and treasured her all these years.

Her daughter Kari called today, to tell me she'd died quietly last Wednesday. There'll be a service Saturday at her church; it's a Market day, of course, but Denise has promised to cover so I can go.

My kitchen is full of her small, perfect pots. One of them is now my salt cellar; I sprinkle a blessing from her on everything I cook.

Comments

sorry to hear

[chefxh]

Her memory for a blessing.

[sara]

Oh, I'm sorry, but I'm glad you were able to communicate with her at the end. I lost an old friend to cancer this last year and it's been hard not knowing much about what happened at the end.

[anais_pf]

I'm sorry for your loss of a friend.