FEATURE
Caroline Kable
Type
Interview
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Caroline Kable’s furniture design resonates deeply with us. Her approach is unlike most: she writes poetry directly onto her pieces as she creates them, etching and engraving words into stone, hammering letters into copper, burning text into wood. The process is methodical and intuitive. She collects stones from scrap yards and hikes, holding onto them for months until the right poem emerges to accompany them. Her recent copper table became a week-long meditation in letter stamping, completing sixteen unique poems written directly onto the metal panels after the table was constructed.
Following a severe brain injury in 2022 that left her with altered mental state and shattered clavicle, Caroline discovered that writing became both memory keeper and pathway back to making. The writing started as a way to process her recovery but naturally found its way into her physical work. As she puts it, poetry and objects tend to develop together rather than separately, creating pieces that hold both function and deeply personal narrative.
Caroline’s technical background spans architecture studies, blacksmithing apprenticeship, and architectural steel fabrication, influences visible in her heavy-handed forms with lighter detailing. Through her collaboration with Aditya Jaimini on Evam, she explores traditional Indian craft techniques that offer a fascinating contrast to her intentionally rough personal work. This demonstrates how her approach to embedding narrative into materials translates across different making traditions and cultural contexts.
Your recent work has emerged from a profound personal journey following an accident in 2022. Could you share a bit about this experience and how it eventually led you back to making?
Absolutely. Prior to my accident I had a tremendously full schedule commensurate with living and working in NYC in your early 30’s. I made pieces when I had extra time at my studio space in Red Hook, which wasn’t frequent. After my severe TBI (traumatic brain injury) and craniotomy, I was in an altered mental state for about a year. I had also shattered my clavicle so it was difficult to do much of anything for months. Going from being so active to severely disabled was also psychologically trying to say the least, so I found ways to keep my mind occupied. That’s why I started writing. Because my memory was so poor, it was sort of like being able to have conversations with myself about what I had gone through, and my only way to remember how I was feeling during my recovery. I was able to seamlessly integrate it into the practice I already had, and since I couldn’t do much of anything else, I’d sit by the water at my studio in Red Hook and write. I slowly began to regain strength enough to build simple pieces of furniture again, but it started with etching / inscribing stone with my non-injured arm.
Since incorporating writing into your work, how does the process of selecting which words to engrave, etch, or hammer into a piece differ from both writing and making separately?
Sometimes I write in a journal and accumulate work and later integrate it into a piece that I think it will fit nicely into, but mostly I write to accompany a physical piece while I’m working on it, so they sort of come to be in conjunction. It happens very naturally / intuitively.
Could you walk us through your technical process for a recent piece – from selecting materials to finishing techniques? Are there specific tools or methods you’ve developed that are particularly important to your work?
I commonly find stones at scrap yards or on hikes that I like and hold on to them for a few months. When I feel I have a beginning to a piece of writing, I’ll start working on them in conjunction. Most recently I made a copper table with 16 unique poems stamped into it. I actually made the table without any writing started, then wrote each piece directly onto the metal panels after the table was made. I then stamped the letters into the metal with a set of stamps I’ve been using for years. Each letter is stamped individually, and it took about a week of stamping to finish. I’m not sure how many letters are in that piece… I haven’t counted yet, but I’m sure there are thousands. For the stone pieces I use a similar process of sculpting the piece, then selecting a poem I think fits- usually one that is only half finished. I then use soapstone to map out where the text will go so I can make edits and ensure the text fits intuitively onto the piece. It’s then engraved tediously into the stone, or sometimes burnt into the wood.
Your personal artistic practice runs parallel to Evam, your collaborative venture with Aditya Jaimini that focuses on contemporary interpretations of traditional Indian crafts. How do these two creative paths inform and influence each other, and what do you find fulfilling about maintaining both?
I think that formally they’re quite similar, but technically extremely different. I design my own pieces that reflect my hand touch, but the pieces in India reflect traditional techniques that have been passed down for generations. They’re highly honed while mine are very intentionally rough. It’s nice to have two correlated yet contrasting outputs- they present very different creative problems that I get to solve. The work I do in India is also a collaboration with the designer Rakesh Suthar who is an architect based in Bali, so the order of operations, inputs, and range of outputs are more diverse. In my personal practice I have far more control, yet it’s far more sculptural work.
Your background combines metal fabrication with experiences growing up in rural Maryland. Could you share how these influences converge in your approach to materials and forms in your current work?
I studied architecture in undergrad, did a blacksmithing apprenticeship, and went on to work in architectural steel fabrication for Malcolm Majer. This was over ten years ago, so I think the basis of my work is impacted by the stylization of steel furniture during that time. It’s pretty heavy handed with lighter detailing. I’ve since worked with wood extensively, but my heart has always belonged to metal processes and practical applications, which implies form. Growing up in Maryland…. I spent as much time as possible outside, and still do. I had a massive rock collection and a pet rock named Elmo I carried around for an embarrassingly long time. I also spent a lot of time in the woods, climbing trees and reading, so it makes sense that poetry found its way into my work.
