What we didn't know about Katie Pumphrey, ultra-marathon swimmer and professional artist prepares for Artscape
BALTIMORE – As if being a history-making, ultra-marathon swimmer wasn't enough, Katie Pumphrey is also a professional artist. You can see some of her work at Artscape this weekend.
Katie Pumphrey embarked on her biggest athletic endeavor this past June, a 24-mile, almost 14-hour swim from the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
"I was truly brainstorming this painting in the first 5 hours of my Bay to Baltimore swim," Pumphrey said.
A master of her crafts and, clearly, of multi-tasking, she's been both an artist and an athlete for as long as she can remember.
"I had my write down a list of colors. While you were swimming? Mhm"
But come high school, Katie had to choose between swimming at the college level or attending the Maryland Institute College of Art. She ultimately chose MICA.
"It was just the right choice for me at the time," she said. "And I'm very glad I did it."
However, Katie kept swimming with each stroke in the water flowing into every stroke on her canvas.
"In all my work, I'm really pulling from swimming and my experiences in the water," Pumphrey explained. "And using that to talk about how we react to things. How we react to threats or changes. How we deal with our anxiety, with our fears, stress. And how we process all of that with a bit of humor."
At times, literally pulling from her experiences in the water, Katie showed WJZ a look at one of her sculptures made of floaties that'll be on display at Artscape.
"When you walk in, I'm pretty sure you're gonna see that sculpture immediately," she said. "You can squeeze it if you wish."
Katie also gave us a preview of a large-scale abstract painting she is preparing for Artscape.
She called it a response to John Singleton Copley's notable "Watson and the Shark".
But instead featuring, "my crew from my Bay to Baltimore swim. I will be Watson with both legs...and then eventually there will be a shark," Pumphrey said.
The almost childlike, imaginary depiction of the shark drew Katie to Copley's piece.
"In my swims, my imagination plays tricks on me," she said. "In the Bay to Baltimore actually...I always think about sharks, but I was especially thinking about sharks in this one...Your brain starts going. And then I start playing the movie Jaws."
Nonetheless, she persevered up the Patapsco and is now, as she always does, putting that all to paint.
"Swimming and art are so woven together in my life, in my world, and in my thought process, it's hard to imagine one without the other one," said Katie.
Katie gives all her credit to her family and support system and then eventually admits, "I'm pretty freaking proud of myself...this swim, and that work, the pieces that are coming together, I've been working towards for the last decade...so it's really lovely that it's all kinda coming together."
If you're going to Artscape, you can see Katie's pieces in the main gallery of MICA's Fox Building or you can always check her work at katiepumphrey.com.
