Catherine "Kater" Cheek is a writer and artist.
Catherine Cheek
Author's posts
Feb 24
Smiley Ball 18
Here’s another one of my smiley balls. I think I still have this one. I placed it near a fountain, hoping that it would eventually get damp enough to grow moss. So far it hasn’t, but then again, we do live in the desert. I bet it would make an awesome chia pet.
Feb 23
Book Review: Anatomy of an Epidemic
Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker This book is written with an agenda, and I usually don’t like one-sided arguments, but in this case, the argument is one that I was already disposed to believe: namely, that taking mind-altering drugs does …
Feb 21
Mosaic Tiles 4
This is the last of the batch of mosaic tiles I made in this kiln load. The crawling design on the green tiles is from overfiring. It is not intentional, but I’m going to pretend that it was. I have so many of these that at some point I ought to think of a design …
Feb 18
Inlay Tiles
The inlay technique has been used to awesome effect for centuries. You create an incised design in a colored clay body, then add a slip in a contrasting color. When you scrape off the slip, the design underneath comes through in crisp detail. I have never been able to make it work. For these, I …
Feb 15
Leaf Mosaic Tiles
I saw a picture in a book of a tile mosaic that looked like a carpet made of leaves. These are difficult in the same way that quilting is difficult–they take precision and a great deal of time. To make the leaf vein pattern, I used a mulberry leaf. The shapes are about an inch …