Aleda Rosenblum Katz

Hometown: New York City
Education Background: BA in Studio Arts at Bard College

How did you get interested in your field?
I have always needed to keep my hands busy. From elementary school to now, I would rip paper apart, crumple paper, and reconstruct bits of tinfoil from my wrapped lunches and anything else I could get my hands on to create forms with some bodily, animistic, and animalistic aspect. I started working with clay at the age of 12, learning how to throw, and later assisting in the same ceramics studio (Greenwhich House Pottery) where I was able to dive more into the process of making clay and glazes. At Bard College, I completely immersed myself in the studio Arts department, helping fire, mix, and TA for as many ceramic sculpture courses as I could. I also created and co-headed Clay-ub (Bard College's ceramics club), where students, faculty, and staff would come to work with clay. As an artist now, I work primarily with found and used materials, deconstructing, sometimes pounding these objects into rubble, and then reassembling them.

What was your background prior to coming to Penn?
I went to Bard College and graduated with a Studio Arts degree.

Why did you choose Penn?
I chose the Weitzman School of Design at UPenn because of how personable the Fine Arts department was. In my interview, there were questions about my practice, influences, and how I seek to continue my education, but there was also an honest discussion of the professors' experiences at the school. I also received a personal call from the head of the Fine Arts Department, Sharon Hayes, when I was accepted. She expressed how the department will work with me to the best of their ability to support my needs. I took them up on this. Sharon didn’t waiver; she put me in touch with all the resources and financial support systems at UPenn, and we worked together to ensure an easy transition to UPenn.

What do you like best about Philadelphia?
There are a lot of local music venues in Philly. If you are ever looking for a place to go on any day, there is likely something happening. Always keep an eye out for flyers on the streets.

What are your career ambitions?
I am working as a TA for an undergrad ceramics sculpture course. All of the students in this course are from different disciplines outside of fine arts, law, computer science, nursing, philosophy, etc. Access to a creative outlet in a sculptural form, I believe, is beneficial to any person in any discipline. It might be completely different from what they might be used to, and it can be an escape for many from the daily grind of working on a computer. Using your hands to sculpt, getting dirty, experimenting without consequences, and having a finished product you can hold that was made only by your hands, that is permanent and can only be destroyed, recycled, and reused by grinding it up into dust, is powerful. I believe there isn’t enough opportunity in our growing industry-based world and work environments to allow for hand-based creativity.