Member Spotlight - Kathy Steinbring

Growing up with two sisters, one brother and living with her grandparents in Berwyn, some of Kathy’s earliest memories are of sitting at a table in the basement drawing, as well as building sandcastles in a sandbox. She was also fascinated with paper dolls and created clothes for them. After she learned to sew in 7th grade, and her mother bought her a used sewing machine, she became obsessed with making clothing. She sewed all the time, manipulating patterns to get her clothes just the way she wanted them.



She had moved to St. Charles about five years before she retired and came across the Fine Line catalog in her mail. She had taken some classes at Fine Line twenty years earlier and was ready to revisit the venue. She signed up for a class on metal clay and was immediately entranced with the medium. She kept taking classes, slowly collecting her own materials for her home studio space.

Earlier in her artistic career, Kathy states that she manipulated fabrics and sewing patterns, paper dolls, played with watercolor and later worked in the darkroom with photography and manipulated the images. All this practice early on has served her well as she now enjoys manipulating metal clay. Whether it is saving small pieces of clay to reuse, using a variety of metals in the clay as well, or using nature to inspire her, Kathy gets joy out of making assemblages using metal clay.
Kathy enjoys being at the Fine Line. She took a paper making class in the ‘80s and still has the basket she made there. One of her proudest moments was winning the Best of Show and selling her winning bracelet at the opening of the Garden Party Show in the Kavanagh Gallery. Now she teaches a variety of metal clay classes and has a loyal following. She is at her happiest when sharing her love of a medium or process and inspiring someone else to have a fulfilling, creative experience. Although she doesn’t make much jewelry for herself anymore, she still enjoys experimenting with the medium. She is a certified Art Clay instructor.
Kathy considers herself more of a teacher than an artist. Fellow artists and students are who inspire her, and she loves sharing the medium with them. It has been difficult to maintain some of the momentum during the pandemic, and she is hoping to begin to look for classes, workshops and opportunities to work with masters and innovators in metal clay as the worst of the pandemic winds down.
