ABOUT me

Kristin Powers is a sculptural installation artist focused on creating spaces while leaving room for reflection. Working with multiple mediums, lens-based media, and sound, Powers explores an ever-evolving iterative landscape, looking for resonant frequencies where many feel. 

Powers holds a BFA in Ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design, and an MFA in Sculpture from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has attended residencies at MERZ - Scotland, Vermont Studio Center, Haystack, and Penland. Powers’ recent curatorial projects include Elemental, What Do We Have To Say?, and The Art of Storytelling. Her work has recently been shown at MassArt x SoWa in Boston, The Black Box Gallery in Oregon, and SAGE Gallery in Wyoming.

In 1990, Powers co-founded Trikeenan Tileworks, a US manufacturer of quality handcrafted architectural ceramics, growing the company from inception to $3+ million in annual sales to multiple market channels internationally. With 2 factories and a gallery showroom, Powers co-developed diverse artisan and automated ceramic processes receiving several awards for product and exhibit design, architectural design, and manufacturing. Often on the cutting edge of industry trends, Trikeenan was recognized as a visionary leader in the artisanal tile market for over 20 years.

In 2012, Powers was invited to develop, direct, and teach the arts program at an innovative Waldorf high school with an experiential and culturally-responsive pedagogy, eventually becoming Chair. Mentoring with a notable Waldorf arts and aesthetics professor, Powers has trained extensively as an experiential arts and aesthetics teacher for college and high school environments. In 2016, Powers traveled to Asia to teach and assist in the development of art programs in China, as well as teaching and volunteering extensively in schools and orphanages in Nepal and India.

Recently contracted to formulate locally mined clay from former brickfields into a usable throwing and sculptural clay body, Powers successfully laid the foundation for a new ceramic residency to open in the Dumfries/Galloway area of Southwestern Scotland.

Powers continues to teach experiential arts remotely for Rhode Island School of Design and an international Buddhist/Steinerian teacher-training college based in Nepal, as well as conducting research and curriculum planning.

Born in Chicago, raised in England and Canada, Powers is currently based in Boston working for Massachusetts College of Art and Design, curating the college’s art collection.

Born in Chicago, raised in England and Canada, Powers is currently based in Boston performing curatorial work for Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the only public art school in the US, installing exhibitions in educational galleries, public spaces, institutional, and civic offices.

and if you want to know more…

In the past five years my life has changed dramatically. I sold my home, left my teaching position, set out with my husband on a journey through China and Nepal, returned to covid, enrolled in an mfa program, and graduated with an master’s of fine arts in sculpture. This decision to leave our known lives behind was catalyzed by many different occurrences, and in order to explain who I am, I will tell you a short story.

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of design in in 1986, I met a man who would eventually become my husband, Stephen Powers. He also attended RISD, and together we founded an artisan tile company called Trikeenan Tileworks. The name evolved from our two small children, Trina and Keenan. A few years later we had another daughter, Siena, which provided us with the colour for our logo. The company grew over time to include 50+ employees, two factories, a gallery showroom, and many clients around the world. For the next 25 years Trikeenan was not only our profession but an extension of our family. We designed Tile for residential homes, community spaces, Heathcare facilities, hotels and restaurants, as well as for many corporate clients like Wholefoods, Starbucks, Mercy Hospital, and Tommy Hilfiger.

In 2011 the company was taken over by a corporation that my husband and I were not in favour of. Unfortunately, due to the financial crisis in 2008, we did not have the resources to fight this battle, and so we decided to start over again! This was not an easy transition, but it was an opportunity to discover our lives anew.

At this time the Monadnock Waldorf school, which our children had attended, was opening a high school and I was excited to help them develop their art department. I worked with the school for four and a half years, teaching, developing the art curriculum, and chairing the school.

However, it was at this time that the seeds of a larger change started to grow. By this time all of our children had left home, and there was no particular reason for us to remain. In fact, due to a comical incident in Logan airport, we were bumped off a flight and given two free tickets to anywhere in the world.

So, with nothing left for us in Keene, NH, we quit our jobs, packed up our things (which was no small task) and ‘bought’ two tickets to Shanghai. First we went to a city called Jingdezhen, near Shanghai in the Jianxi province, and lived there on and off for 5 months. Jingdezhen is a city of ceramics, where porcelain was invented. For the past 2000 years they have been on the forefront of ceramic production and design, and is the reason why China is called “China” by the western world. With a background in ceramic tile production we were fascinated by this city. We lived and worked in factorIES where we could explore some of our own designs, as well as learn new methods.

This trip served a dual purpose. Due to our connections with the Waldorf community we had been invited to help a number of relatively new Waldorf high schools in China, Nepal, and India. My role was to teach, mentor, and develop their art departments, a project which I very much enjoyed and continue to do. After a year of traveling, my husband and I returned to the states. I have returned to Asia since then for a few months each time, up until the pandemic that is.

I remain a core faculty member of a buddhist teacher-training center based in Kathmandu, Nepal, and continue teaching remotely, and developing curriculum for the experiential art section serving an international community.

In 2020 under the hostage of covid, i chose to return to art school to earn my master of fine arts in sculpture. Of course, what else could i do! Now having achieved this lifelong dream i am officially an emerging artist committed to looking, learning, and living my art. Always in search of collaborative ventures and looking for new ways to See, I am letting intuition guide my way.

Hoping the Adventures never end, my story continues on.

Be in touch!