Katie Pumphrey: Ultra-Marathon Open Water Swimmer and Visual Artist

Only a couple months now, now, now, now. I think I recognize her. Welcome to The Truth in Us Art, your source for conversations at the intersection of arts, culture, and community. I am your host Rob Lee. Thank you for joining me today.

And this episode is a special episode brought to you by my media partnership with Baltimore Magazine. Today, I'm excited to be in conversation with my next guest. An interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the tensions and connections between human instincts and play. Her experiences as a ultra marathon open water swimmer deeply influenced her abstract paintings, sculptures, and installations. Please welcome Katie Pumphrey.

Welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Thanks.

Thank you for coming to see if you just went into it. It's almost like when you get a needle prick. Yeah. And they don't tell you. It's like, oh, and we're done.

It's good

to not know it's coming.

Yeah. Yeah. I've been recording this entire time.

I believed you.

I I wasn't. I just started recording.

So I assume that when there's a mic on that it could be on.

Oh, no. No. No. Yeah. That's journalistic integrity journalistic integrity.

Bap bap bap.

There's a great episode of The West Wing where the mic is hot, and president Bartlett knows it. And he's like, oh, no. That was hot. Oops.

So it's been you you touched on this, before when we were chatting it up. We've been chatting for a little bit. So this is one of the benefits of the studio and the studio visit. But I'm gonna give you the space and opportunity as we go into this this deeper conversation to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your work. The artist side, the ultra marathon open water swimmer side, the hope give us the gamut, please, if you will.

Yeah. Well, I'm Katie, Katie Pumphrey. Yeah. I'm a visual artist and ultra marathon open water swimmer. My two worlds are very woven together, especially recently, and that's it's very intentional.

In the past few years, I've been trying to kind of be more in those worlds, I have big goals in both sides, but they're also feeding each other.

Sure.

And they always have, but I'm trying to talk about that more, bring swimming into my artwork more, and and as an athlete also, you know, talk about that experience and how I do what I do while also being a full time artist. But yeah, I've been in Baltimore for 20 years, I love this city, and yeah, thanks for coming to my studio.

Thank you for having me. It's it's rare that I get out. I'm I'm trying to work on being a recluse.

Nice.

Trying to I'm gonna regrow my beard. I've trimmed it off completely up on point.

And I get the vibes. I'm alone in my studio a lot. So, you know, and I'm alone underwater a lot. So I I get it.

I'm just trying to be like an Alan Moore of podcasting. It's gonna be great. And and thank you for that that that introduction. And, so going back a little bit, what was that point where you were considering sort of the overlap and the the connection

Mhmm.

You know, of, like, the the visual work and the sculpture as well, the visual work and and and swimming?

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I've always been a swimmer. I started swimming on a team when I was 5, and my focus for a lot of my youth was swimming. And I kind of always I always said like, oh I'll be an artist, but I'll get to that later. I'm like really focused on swimming, and so for a long time it felt like I was in one world or the other.

Yeah. And in going to high school, in Frederick County, Middletown, good night, You know, I kind of made a shift. I was really involved in sports. I was running cross country. I was swimming in the winter and running track in the spring, and, sports are definitely, I don't know, how I got through high school and the biggest enjoyment I felt in that, but I kind of threw myself into art.

And I had made the decision that I was going to go to art school.

Yeah.

And so I was working towards and I did go to the Maryland Institute College of Art, MICA here in Baltimore and but that was a huge shift and I felt when I graduated high school that my swimming career was over. I mourned it, I like said goodbye, it was very dramatic, there were many tears, and I went to MICA and I moved to Baltimore, you know, and I was a painting major, I mean, so I really, I threw myself into that and that has been my focus and was always my career, trajectory, right? And, but throughout college I needed a part time job, and so I was working at the Y on 33rd Street as a lifeguard, a swim instructor, eventually a swim coach, but I was also teaching water aerobics, which was great fun, but because I was at the pool a lot, many times a week, I was also that was my fitness. So, I was still like training by myself, You know, we're not I wouldn't call it training. I was like, you know, swimming for general fitness and while I thought that my time as an athlete was kind of over, all of those feelings and thoughts like started getting louder and creeping in more and towards the end of college I figured out, and I'd like signed up for some 5ks, and was like, oh, maybe I'll get into running, and I, like, thought about the idea of a half marathon or a marathon, and I was like, you know, I just don't like running.

So, I mean, I like it enough, but not, well, I don't like it that much.

My knees. I

like it. I don't like it enough. Yeah. Exactly. My knees.

Although I still have knee problems, but, you know, whatever. And right after I graduated college, I stayed in Baltimore. I fell further in love with this city and started really thinking about, you know, what do I want to do with my work? What do I want to do? I was a coaching swimming at the time.

I kind of shifted from swim lessons and and water aerobics to a kind of more more coaching, and that kind of became, like, my more full time job for a while. And kind of throughout especially that 1st year out of college, when I was trying to, like, get rid of my professors voices in my work and I was trying to find my way in painting, I felt like oh I need a goal with fitness, right? And I've learned I am not someone that likes to work out for the sake of working out. I do enjoy it Very much. I couldn't do what I do without enjoying it, but I like having something I'm working towards.

So I signed up for the Chesapeake Bay swim in 2010. I graduated college the year before, and so in working towards that swim, that really lit a fire. The just the idea like, I loved training for it. I loved having a plan and working it out. I loved figuring out what I should do along the way, and I could learn so much in that 1st year.

And the Chesapeake Bay swim is certainly not a beginner swim. It's rough. It's like rough water. It's choppy, and you swim from Sandy Point State Park, to the other side. So the swim basically goes between the two spans of the Bay Bridge.

So it's a really wild experience too because you get to look up and see these spans. You're out in the Chesapeake Bay. You know, you're swimming towards the Eastern Shore. You know, it it finished. And the first thing I said was which, like, surviving that first swim was, like, epic.

And the first thing I said to my mom actually was, like, oh, my gosh. That was the hardest thing I've ever done. I wanna do it again. So I trained for that the next year and, like, started adjusting how I was training. Yeah.

And I was learning a lot from coaching, which I think being a coach has certainly made me a better athlete. And to the next year, I did the base swim plus also a 7 and a half mile swim. And I later signed up for a 10 ks, and I signed up for, like, you know, a bunch of other, like, I worked towards a 10 miler. And as I got towards, you know, 2012 or 2013, and I started thinking about bigger swims, there were just, like, pieces of how do I do what I need to do to train for this kind of big swim, while making sure I have enough time in the studio?

Yeah.

And so while I had tried, you know, and I said goodbye to swimming, right, I thought it was over, and then I was kind of mixing it in in a more hobby way, the more I thought about to train for something big, like the English Channel, how do I make all of that time, which is essentially like a full time job on its own, how do I make that work with my studio practice,

and

how do I make that work with the jobs I was doing to pay the bills, right? Coaching, and I was teaching some art classes, and, you know, doing all sorts of stuff. So I really think it started to weave together more just out of my schedule, and the more that I my work shifted, the more I was thinking about all of that at the same time. And so I feel like it's been years of it kind of, like, weaving together and apart, and together and apart, and now I think being an artist, being an athlete, you know, and and being a professional at both of those is is so woven together that, like, I can't have one without the other. And they are also 2 jobs, you know, 2 unique jobs that 2 unique jobs that, require so much focus on their own and so much time.

So the more that I weave them together, I think the more successful I am at both. I think I've also figured out how they're woven together together as I've gotten more involved with them. Sure. You know, I think when I was in my early twenties and I had that kind of, you know, that part time job shuffle, right, part time job hustle where it's like you're fitting together this and this and this, and then I hope I pay rent and which I still very much understand those feelings and feel that occasionally as well. But around that time when I was kind of figuring out how these worlds work, I felt, I think identity, you kind of touched on that, like, in, in among art friends and art circles, I felt like an artist, right?

And I also swim. Yeah. But with my kind of swimming friends or coaching friends in the swimming world, it's like I was a swimmer and a coach and I oh, I was also an artist.

Yeah.

And the more that I think talking to students about kind of how my career has looked has been really helpful to kind of recognize that my identity is both. And some of that that shift, I think, happened when I did make the leap towards being a full time professional artist.

Yeah.

And I quit some of those part time jobs, and, you know, was relying a 100% on art to make my income. And that shift also gave me more freedom as an athlete to train, right? Because if I'm self employed a 100%, then I can set my own schedule, which I've realized recently in the last few years of, like, oh, right, I don't have to swim at 5 AM. I'm self employed and my boss is really nice and very pretty. I should swim at 8 because I can.

So that's been like that's been very nice. But, yeah I kind of made that leap to being a full time artist in 2015. Yeah. Which was right, you know, kind of leading up to that I was, I started and decided to swim The English Channel. So in 2015, which was like a giant year, I, January of 2015, I, you know, put in my notice, my coaching job that I was at, and and I didn't take on any other classes, and I just relied on art sales, right, which was terrifying.

Yeah.

But that later that year in August, I swam The English Channel. So it was these 2 huge leaps, but I was doing it all at the same time. And that time, I think, especially changed my work.

Yeah. You

know, I really felt I had just gone through this you know, The English Channel was just, like, the most epic, most terrifying, most powerful thing I'd ever felt, right? Just that body of water is, like, massive and it's powerful is, like, the word I was going to because it's so turbulent and unpredictable. Yeah.

How did that experience build up your confidence? And I'll say say it because of because of this, like, I, I'm a shy extrovert. I don't like getting I'm just all arms and legs. I'm all over the place. Right?

And I it's it's something I just don't really jam with, but when I kinda get past it and I figure out how to how I'm gonna do it, it's just like, I'll give you 10 more of these. Let's make it happen. Like, my confidence level was at a at a all time high

Yeah.

For, like, 5 minutes, and then it's just back to normal. But for you, having that experience with the, you know, English Channel, talk talk a bit about that.

Well, I think and even, like, from my first open water swim in 2010, you know, and then I shifted my training for that that swim the next year. You know, I think and then over the few years, it's like you start figuring out not only how to train for these things in general, right, how most swimmers do that, but how, how does that work for me?

Yeah.

And now I, I'm still, I am coaching a little bit, which I really love. I love coaching. So right now I'm, the last few years, I've been working with a handful of adult athletes, from around the country that are training for, kind of, their 1st marathon swim or a channel swim or, you know, some kind of big, big, big swim. And one of the biggest things I talk about, I think, is that lesson I learned in that time, especially that I made that leap in my first big swim in the English Channel, is how do you, as an adult that has a job and friends and family and social life, how do you how do you train for that without losing yourself?

Yeah.

Right? And there are sacrifices you have to make in order to do that and put the time in and be prepared, right, and train well, but that's all happening in context to your whole life. And so for me, what I figured out over the years, and I think kind of what has helped my confidence in training, is is taking all of that into account, right? When I write out a training my training plan for myself as I work towards a big swim, I make sure on that same calendar is like big deadlines I have in the studio. Yeah.

Right? Or the weeks that I need to build canvases, which is really physical, that's not gonna be my biggest week in the pool.

Right. Right?

Because that's too much all at once. That's physically taxing and, you know, not smart training. I think that's a big piece is, like, train smart.

That makes makes a lot of sense, and I'm gonna move into this next question. When did this idea first come up to attempt that? Because you're talking earlier about sort of the English Channel and sort of your preparing and sort of that that work these these sort of longer swims. So, you know, what was the point where you're like, I'm gonna do this here. I'm gonna do this in Baltimore.

I mean, really, I think, you know, from that first open water swim in 2010, which started the exact same spot, I started my bay to Baltimore swim to starting at Sandy Point State Park, which choosing that as a starting point for my for my bay to Baltimore was very intentional. And so really since, like, as, you know, over the years, my swimming has evolved, my artwork has evolved. You know, it's like talking kind of about that building confidence, right, and figuring out what works for you. Over the years, I've done a lot of big swims. I've done a lot of big swims in other cities.

Yeah.

Right? Across the US, in other countries, and kind of built up this awesome resume and all of these wild experiences and, you know, I've become an athlete that I think, I think when I first got into open water, I never could have envisioned that this is where swimming would take me. Sure. And all the while, I live just a few blocks from the water. Right?

I can walk down the hill to water. I hang hang out in Sells Point all the time by water. And as a swimmer, I look in there and I'm like, I wanna go swimming.

Right.

And, yeah, living in Baltimore for nearly 20 years, I thought a lot about what would it be like to do a swim and swim into our city. So over the years, while I've done the other, these other big swims and and figured out how to train for things and, you know, even doing swims that no one else had ever done, in 2021, I did a 21 mile swim in Deep Creek Lake. So I did the length twice and doing that kind of swim that no one had done and, you know, other swimmers had done long swims in there and grabbing resources from them and figuring out how do we do the swim, what are the logistics with boats. You know, the more that that dream of doing a swim at home built, right? It kind of just continued to build.

And all the while, I've been kind of, you know, watching and listening and waiting and hearing, you know, all of this, all the improvements that have been happening to the Patapsco River and to the inner harbor, right? And over the years, my husband and I have been talking about how great it would be to do this swim, and what what should it look like, how how does that work, you know, what would the starting point be, what's the distance, what's the time. So, really, it was just a dream for a very long time. And about a year ago, Waterfront Partnership announced kind of starting to tease at their Harbour Splash event, which happened this past June. And they posted some kind of teasers, where their staff, and partners and advocates jumped in the Harbour.

And I emailed them within 3 minutes and said, I want to do a swim, you you know, and night we, like, Joe, my husband, and I kind of talked out, like, roughly what that should be, but I was already booked for the Catalina channel, my second Catalina swim, later that summer, this past summer. And so, again, it's like planning out your year, And in order to make made a Baltimore swimwear, like, happen in the way that I dreamt, I knew I wanted it to be bigger than what we kind of originally thought when I first reached out to Waterfront. When I reached out to Waterfront, I was looking at, like, you know, the Key Bridge Inn or, you know, kind of some kind of swim that Mr. Trash Wheel, because he's an icon and amazing, could join us right into the finish. But the more that we talked out, why do I want to do this swim, not only as an athlete do I want to do a swim at home, but it's like, I wanted to do it to spread the message of this milestone, right?

Baltimore reaching levels of swimmable water is huge. That doesn't mean that we've, like, crossed a finish line. There's still more work to do. Sure. Right?

But reaching Waterfront Partnership and, which is an amazing non profit here in Baltimore, you know, and so many other organizations have been working for decades towards this, right? A lot of city resources have gone into making the Harbour cleaner and healthier, and a lot of that testing that Waterfront Partnership has been doing is looking at it to see, is it getting more predictable?

Yeah.

Right? So then, as they were planning their Harbor Splash event, and I started really thinking about what the swim should be, that's where I I wanted to connect with them, and I'm so glad I did to help spread the message that they've been working on, right, And and really sharing that milestone, but also, like, let's continue to talk about what does this mean, and what can it mean, and what doors can this open. So as my husband and I then, like, kind of looked at the map more, and we were looking at title charts, and, like, okay, how realistically, like, what realistic swim can we do here, you know, in this year, in, you know, where the water temperature is like this, you know, and the tide is like that, and, kind of, bay to Baltimore started coming to shape in, like, January, February. Wow. Yeah.

So it really it was it was nearly 8 months of planning.

It's that calendar you're talking about.

Yeah. Again yeah. Looking at, like, the training plan, not only is that getting ready for a big swim of that length and and, you know, I was looking at 12 to 14 hours, but for the swim, but all of those logistics that go into place to make a swim safe and and successful. So I'm so glad I partnered with Waterfront Partnership, they're amazing. I, you know, then over the course of those months, I I put so much work and time and so many emails and phone calls and conversations, and a lot of people made it possible to do that swim.

And, it was not a smooth road in planning, especially with, you know, like open water, a big huge part of open water is unpredictable elements, right? You plan for all the things, but you don't know what the day is going to bring.

Right.

So So in that planning, no one could have ever predicted the Key Bridge collapse.

Yeah. And and that's the thing that's obviously is still being felt. It's still a huge huge thing. I just remember I'm strolling into the gym and it just all like the the guys that work in facilities in my building are like, yo, the the branches fell, man. I was like, I don't I don't know anything about that, bro.

And I think we can see it from my building. I was like, oh, that's not how I'm supposed to look. Yeah. I gotta get these reps in, but and then it just be became a thing. So to your point, yes, things being unpredictable.

And again, it goes, you know, the planning Mhmm. Of having some, like, alright. What could happen here? What am I in control of? And, oh, that wasn't expected.

K. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that I mean, that was, you know, just heartbreaking for our community. Yeah.

And and in and then there was, like, you know, the planning for the swim was really on hold for a while while we kind of waited and and figured out what could still be possible. And there were a lot of discussions about postponing the swim until next year. And in addition to Harbor Splash.

Yeah.

And a lot of the conversations were, but we have reached these swimmable levels. We need to tell people, right? We need to spread this message, and Baltimore deserves to celebrate that that that milestone.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of those conversations was was recognizing, you know, we're all carrying, like, feelings that run parallel to each other. So, you know, it was absolutely heartbreaking to swim through that area.

Yeah.

You know, and I did swim under one of the last remaining spans, but the amount of amazing work that went into making that area passable, right, and our port open and, making steps towards progress in what that bridge will be is huge. So I think that, again, is like another milestone and and all of these feelings kind of get wrapped up in, you know, and run parallel to each other. So this swim was really unlike any other planning I've ever experienced for anything, and and just years in the dreaming, and, I'm still a little bit in shock that it happened.

That's that's great. And I know that you over the last couple of months, if not weeks, but probably months, have, talked about, like, this experience at length. So, glad you're able to talk about it on this podcast.

Yeah. Thanks. It's a it's a pleasure.

So, alright, let's dry off a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I love swimming puns.

That's that's all I do. It's I

mean, let's dive into it, you know?

Oh, gosh.

Let's just, like, wade into it.

Let's make a big splash.

Yeah. Why not?

So now that we've dried off a bit, let's dive into your art. See? Alright. Very, very, very good. How how long have you and I think you touched on this a little bit early, but let's revisit.

How long have you been painting and and and what are the the key themes that you're exploring in your work now?

Yeah. Yeah, painting has kind of always been, you know, it's my first and for forever love, right, in, in art, I think. And sculpture has come later, which I kind of always dreamt about making sculptures, and really it was the pandemic that made me jump into it. You know, it was 2020 and a lot of shows and plans and

The best calendars again.

Again, this calendar, yeah. You know, we're cancelled and I was just like, all right, screw it, I'm making sculpture. You know, I think, I think, COVID taught, taught us a lot of lessons. But really my work for really, really since undergrad, you know, since my time at MICA has been thinking about how our percept like, how our vantage points shift.

You

know, right after school and, like, my senior thesis, in 20, in 2009, how old am I? Geez. You know, I was really thinking about, like, our memories and how they shift Yeah. As we get older, right, and how we we remember things shiny and glossier, than than they were. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, my 9th birthday party is always my example, right? I remember my 9th birthday party being, like, so fun and I had all these friends and I had a great outfit and the cake was awesome. But in reality, like, you know, one of my friends was crying in the corner because they felt left out and, like, someone spilled something and they were crying and, like, you know, my mom was running around stressed and, you know, it's, like, reality but we remember these, like, lovely little things.

Yeah.

And I think in that, my work started shifting towards our our instincts, right, our instincts to move, to be competitive, to react. And that has kind of hung on, in my work and, like, our instincts to things have been like a common thread. And I think a lot of that came from the idea of nostalgia and and how we, yeah, we take little snippets of things and and use that. But, really, as I got into swimming more and got into the water, you know, I went from, kind of, thinking about instinct and movement in a fight or flight way, which I still think about that a lot, but, but really shifting towards what do we do with chaos, right? What do we do with stress and anxiety?

And so now my work is really exploring, like, how our imagination plays tricks on us, right? And I'm pulling from my time in the water, and my training, and, kind of, the visuals of swimming, and visuals of open water, but really exploring, you know, the moments of chaos and movement and an unsteady ground, you know, next to something that's solid. So in my work there's a lot of areas of, like, gestural, you know, brushstrokes, and color, and that's next to hard, you know, crisp edges and flat blocks of color. And so I want your eye to, kind of, experience that loud chaos next to, kind of, a quiet solid shape, right? And, you know, a lot of ways and during my swims, I'm constantly watching the water, kind of, move past and hit against the side of the boat.

And the boat for me, since I'm level with it the whole time, is like the solid thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, you're working towards a finish, which sometimes is like a wall or a rock or a beach. This, like, solid edge that's often just the horizon line in a far, you know, kind of far off in the distance that seems to never get closer no matter how much you swim. So yeah, my work has been kind of really evolving and over the years was really imagery based.

Yeah.

And I kind of started painting the image out, and I got way more in towards towards abstraction in, you know, 2017 to 1920 20. And over the last few years, as swimming has has gotten even bigger in my time, in my life, in my calendar. Right?

Yeah.

The more I've been bringing the image back, and I think I needed to kind of lose it for a while in order to bring it back in the way I wanted. So now, image and, like, rendering of images in different ways, in clear ways, and kind of hinting at visuals for the viewer is now married to abstraction. So both worlds are there, which has been really fun to play with.

That makes sense. The at a at a point, and I wanted to throw in this pun, I'll just throw it out there because it's funny. You know, calm waters and chaotic waves.

Sure.

Yeah, exactly. And, but it it also had me thinking, you know, for a second, when I when I get into the weeds and doing all of this stuff, and I would imagine a lot of folks run into it and sort of like that horizon line or whatever. It's it's sort of this idea of what is real.

Mhmm.

And it's just like, I know that's there, but how far is it away, that sort of, like, concept or what have you. It's like, I know it's there, but I can't touch it quite yet. Is it a mirage and and all of that different stuff? And I apply that actually when I head into my studio, I have one of these little placards that just says literally what is real. And maybe I'm going Philip K.

Dick about it or what have you, but it's definitely a reference that I use that I just try to attach back to because, you know, you just, quote unquote, as my dad would say, you're just ripping and running, you're just doing all this different stuff, and you don't have a chance to really sit there and have a concept of what are you doing? Mhmm. What is this right here? You're just putting time and effort towards something, but what are you doing? And when you have time to think about it, it kinda reconnects you to what your intention is and why you're doing whatever your the the work is that you're doing.

You know, every now and again, I have this opportunity to kinda notice. I run into, like, this sort of block of writing questions, trying to be insightful, trying to drive at, is this interesting? Is this stupid? And I find when I'm not around the noise, when I'm outside of my normal environment, traveling, being in it, being a thing and trying to plan that out calendar again.

Yeah.

I'm somehow it's right there. I tap right back into it because what's around me is different.

Mhmm.

So I have these different insights. And I'm like, oh.

That's like planning recovery time. Right? You need you need time to rest, like, your brain. You need time to rest your body. And I think the more you do that, the more the more those wheels turn smoothly.

So I think, kind of, that one is real is a big, big thing in my work. Sure. You know, a lot of my work, kind of, and especially that play between image and abstraction, is giving you, the viewer, just enough information that you feel or see something, and you're I'm hoping that you stand there. I'm hoping I get you to stand there just a little bit longer, to kind of adjust your eyes to whatever it is or wherever I want to take you. I mean, and really, I think, which I always say, like, contemporary art is or the, you know, the job of a contemporary artist is to open a door.

And if I've done my job, I've invited you to step through that door. Wherever you go after that is 100% up to you. That's where it's, like, if there is imagery in my work, especially when it's hinted at, you you know, I think a lot of people want to say, like, oh, is it that? Did I did I look at it right? You know, and the answer is, like, whatever you see or feel is 100% correct.

And that's how we experience art, right? If I got you to stand there for more than 2 seconds, and you felt something, even if that's, like, in rage or you hated it, then, like, cool, you interacted with art and that's great. But my hope is that beyond that two seconds, that maybe I'm inviting you to, even though I'm using swimming, I'm using my experiences, I'm bringing in imagery that I'm familiar with, right, like the repetitive hands of swimming, and, you know, references to water and land, hoping that that, kind of, is a car that you get into, you know, and, like, that takes you to your experience. And, like, the what is real I've been playing a lot with in the last couple years of little hints at, you know, sharks, little hints at alligators, little hints at sea monsters, that sometimes you see them, sometimes you don't, sometimes they're clear, sometimes they're not, you know, sometimes that image is really rendered, sometimes a little more hidden, and that is, like, inviting your imagination to play tricks on you. And then those sea monsters become a lovely metaphor for our anxiety, right, our fear.

I may have I may have seen some tentacles earlier. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And my hope in my work is that, you know, I'm I'm kind of referencing and pointing towards our anxiety and our stress, that chaos, kind of losing control, kind of hinting at that, but in a playful way. So bringing in, you know, bright colors and playful titles and and that that little hint of humor. Yeah. And that's something I've been kind of working towards in my work is, like, how do I get things to be humorous?

This is my hinting at the way that we process stress. Right? We stress out about our to do lists and our busy calendars and, but we make jokes about it. Right? Yeah.

Jokes and humor kind of help us get through that. I think even, like, pain and grief and, you know, all sorts of things. Humour is is how we get through that turbulent water, if you will.

I I I joke about it. Thank you for that's a really good point. I got, like, 2 more questions I wanna ask you, before I go to the rapid fire ones, because even you're getting the rapid fire ones. Perfect. Yeah.

I I joke about it when I'm particularly nervous about going on stage. I'm like, oh, come on out and watch me bomb. Watch me look like an ass on stage.

Great. And that helped you get through it.

Yeah. And, you know Do you get

nervous on on, like, public speaking?

Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm, like, I'm not interested. I'm boring. What am I what am I doing?

And I You

gotta be your own biggest fan.

That's true.

That's the biggest thing I tell young artists is you have to be your number one your own number one fan.

But see, I'm washed though. That's the thing. Like, I'm washed up. I'm I'm older than you. No.

But Barely. But but it is this thing where you're right. You're right. And and I instead of getting hooked and caught on it, I start reaching out to other folks who've done it. And because I've got, like, a nice cache of folks that I've interviewed

Mhmm.

I remember reaching out to one person. I'm not gonna name drop right now because it makes me seem gauche, but I'd asked him. I was like, dude, how would you do this? And he was like, start off with something you normally wouldn't do. And he's like, I like to use humor.

Mhmm.

So I was just like, alright. I'm just gonna be in character, but the character that I that I am in this sort of setup is close to who I am anyway, so it's not too much of a leap. And and I and I keep thinking back to the creative morning. So it's that that theme of truth. It was like, this is bespoke to me, you know, and I wear my goofy actually, I brought my goofy wave daddy jersey, and I just was like, look, I gotta make a confession, guys.

We we we're coming friends here. I gotta start off by telling you guys the truth. I give myself my own nicknames. Here's one, and it's the jersey. And from that point, I get everyone on my side, so I'm not thinking about what I'm saying.

I'm just saying it with sort of that confidence. And the reality of what is real of it is it's like, look. Well, I do this. I know how to do this. Just put it in a framework that you know how to do, and folks aren't gonna know that you're nervous.

They're not gonna know any of these different things, and it went over really, really well.

I think also being nervous is is okay. It's good. Right? We get nervous, I think, when we care a lot.

I was nervous when I was walking up these stairs. I was like, where am I going?

Well, that yeah. This way this, you know, this building is a bit of a maze and,

It's nightmare fuel in here. It was not in here.

At night.

I literally said that when I was down. So I was like, I ain't gonna be here at night. It's not gonna be dark when I'm here.

Right. That's really cool. It gets a little creepy. Late hours.

So I got I got these these two questions. One I'm very, very, very curious about. The you know, you you talk you touched on sort of the whimsy, the connection to, like, swimming and sort of, like, just this this concept of reality and and sort of anxiety. All of the feelings. Right?

Let's speak a bit about sort of the sculpture. I see beach balls. I see floaties. There's some whimsy there. So talk a bit about that and how sort of that other side, because there is some humor that fits to that theme, to your to the themes within your work as well.

Yeah. I mean sculpture again, kind of coming from, you know, my first leaps into sculpture were from 2020 and was a big, you know, the world is Yeah. Unpredictable and, not anything like what we've experienced before, and heavy, right? And so much was happening in 2020 that was heartbreaking and challenging and difficult, and that's all happening for all of us while you're not with your family, while you're not with your friends, and I just kept feeling the weight of that. Yeah.

And in wanting to bring humor into my work, especially while I was thinking a lot about all of that heaviness, right, all of the, and yeah, just like the things I was already exploring in my work, that anxiety, that fear, that chaos, and trying to do that with a little bit of lightheartedness, was getting harder, and, you know, taking a break from painting in my studio days and filling a pool float, you know, with with pillow stuffing, was satisfying. Yeah. It was mindless in a lot of ways, and there was many weeks in there where I was just like preparing to make sculpture, right? Sculpture is like such a, it's also so different than painting. Painting, you can endlessly work on painting, right, you can keep layering and changing it, and I do, I always say that my paintings live many lives.

They're never quite done.

Well, and deciding that they're done is one of the hardest things. My grandma always said that. But sculpture requires planning and steps, and there's something very satisfying in those steps, and I love a to do list, so checking things off on those steps was really great. But it was also, yeah, just a different way to problem solve, a different way to to think about something, and in using pull floats, which really came from, you know, I was, I was still, I was training for a swim and working towards 2021. I decided to do the length of Deep Creek Lake twice and, you know, part of deciding to do that swim was I was going to do it by myself and, you know, I had a great crew and, you know, not a lot of travel was required and, I think, you know, somewhere at the pool I found, like, a busted pool float.

And towards the end of that summer, and, you know, I think a few friends had, you know, pool floats with holes in them, and, you know, that would, like, drop them off in my house, and, as I filled them, it just, like, a lot of the playful side of swimming and pools, started coming into my work. And I think, like, what I am pulling from from my experiences in the water is kind of so related to that, the challenge of marathon swimming, and the unpredictable sides of open water, but there's also this really playful side of pools, right, that we weren't experiencing then. And so badly in 2020, 2021, it's like I wanted to go to a pool party with my friends, I wanted to, like, you know, throw a beach ball around and float in a flamingo. You know, it was like the very opposite of what was happening that year. And so, yeah, playing with these, like, wild pool floats that were just staring at me with their weird eyes, was really helpful to, kind of, get into that humorous side of things.

So sculpture, I think, not only has changed the way I think about painting, because painting again is, like, it's such a different form of problem solving. A lot of times I have a plan for paintings, but then I, like, ditch that plan.

Yeah.

10 minutes in, you know, or 10 months in, or, you know, whatever, and these paintings just continue to evolve while sculpture just, yeah, you have to execute that plan and if it doesn't work, like, you're starting over.

It's being agile where, you know, and I do these, it's not the same, but it the invitation thing is there, right, to go to go deeper. And, you know, I'll have some semblance of, yeah, this is what I have in mind. And I tell people all the time, I think, you know, even when I started, it's almost like my boiler my boilerplate speech. It's like, man, if you wanted to talk about cartoons for half an hour, we can talk about cartoons for half an hour. And or if someone is going very specific, like, their answers feel superscripted to the questions Mhmm.

I start improvising. I was like, I got a whole I got a whole different set of questions because literally, you'll you'll probably appreciate this, much like those crime thrillers that I enjoy, it's like those different bullet points are tied and strange. It's that. I've been researching the person for the last, like, least week.

Well, that's and that's where I think in my work, you know, I'm now moving in towards my late 30s, and looking back at the last, you know, 15, 20 years of of how my my studio practice and painting and sculpture, how that has evolved, and how my swimming career has evolved. It's like I am seeing all these through lines, right? The strings are starting to, like, connect to the dots and that's been especially since my bay to Baltimore swim and and my worlds are feeling like they're, like, so woven together. Those connections are getting more obvious, but it's also it feels like more tangled and more complicated and I'm still, I'm still working out how do I talk about it And how do I feel about it? And my, the goals and dreams I have for moving forward are just as big as they've ever been, but they feel even grander and, and some feel, like, real close, like I'm getting there, and some feel like they're moving farther away, you know.

It's just it's been a kind of a wild wild time.

I feel like the color of the strings for you are blue.

There's a lot of blue in my work. Yes. Yeah. And I think even that time of diving into sculpture in 2020, it was around the time where I was like, why am I fighting? Like, I think there was, like, an artist, friend that was like, lot of blue paintings, Katie.

And so I made this, like, for a few years, I feel like I made an effort to really, you know, have more of a range. And I think it was, like, 2020, 2021 where I was, like, screw it. I like blue. And my problem solving when I struggle with the painting is often to, like, draw into it or block out compositions in blue paint. And so why am I fighting something that's like literally the way that my brain works?

You know, and I'm okay with my work being really blue, because it works and I it's good.

It's it's acceptance, and it's back to the identity theme. And Yeah. That is sort of the last real question that I got for you because you answered the other one, so that that works. But with it, you've earned yourself 2 new rapid fire questions, unfortunately. Yes.

So the way that this works I

love a quiz.

The way that this works is, you don't wanna overthink these. And I'm gonna go with one that was in similar territory we just talked about.

Mhmm.

What is your favorite color?

Blue.

Alright. So you're right. This is

so funny. I don't even wear blue all that much.

You're not

you're not wearing blue? And in my house, I feel like like I'm bringing in more greens. You know, like, our wedding colors were, like, green and gold. You know, like, I don't think about the world in blue, but I still love I just love it.

I I just think of Eiffel 65. Not everyone's gonna get that reference, so we're we're belaying our age. You're a big advocate for Baltimore. Heard a lot through through the conversation, and that's it's great. We love that here, obviously.

Yeah.

What are your top three places in the city? Don't care about anyone's feelings. I don't care about anyone's feelings. I care about my own, barely. But what are your top three places in the city?

It could be, you know, a place to eat, could be a place to hang, wherever, but what are your top three places?

Well, I'm gonna give you more than 3, and they're gonna be in categories.

Typical. Well, please.

So as far as, restaurants go, right, I love Sally O's, I love La Burrito, and I love Marta. Okay. There are so many more to add to that list, but that's where I thought of first. That's right. As far as places, I, you know, like to hang out, to also get food, to also get drinks, you know, 1 Dew Coffee Roasters in Canton, they're so lovely.

Ceramoted Coffee is one of my go to coffee spots on the way to the pool, you know, it's like I love different things at different times, that's where I buy candles, you know, there are Mount Royal Soaps, I love, I love that as well. And then there is a buoy in Fells Point. It's, it's right across the way from, like, the Tango and, it's right where and it's possible the buoy is for urban pirate ship, right? It's it's like a it's a bumper buoy that that's against the dock, Alright. So the boats don't there it doesn't slam against

Yeah.

The edge. But there's this buoy in Fells Point, right right there, and it's orange. There are a bunch of white ones around it, but the orange one it's my favorite buoy.

That was wildly specific.

Yeah, I love that buoy so much. I have so many photos and videos of it, but I also recommend like get a coffee, get an ice cream, get a, you know, I don't know. Go sit by the buoy. It's nice.

Okay. I'll take a note. That's that's on my Saturday morning walk. That is the area that I go to.

Perfect.

I mean, I'm bougie. I've stayed at the the Pendry a few times, but,

I have I have that's a great staycation spot. I went there with my sister in, like, 2021 when their prices were really much probably much lower, because people weren't traveling as much yet. But I love a bougie place as well.

Oh, so

And the country is lovely.

It it it is. The last time I was

some great paintings in there.

No. I gotta return then. The last time I was there, I actually went down the street to get a gentleman's facial. It's the first time I actually had a facial.

Nice. I have never had one.

It was, an experience.

I'm okay. I've gotten, you know, some pedicures, manicures. Manicures do not last for me, Like, general spa treatments are just not my go to because I'm usually just, like, you know, a chlorine monster. But I'm down.

I like it. So let's see. Here's another pun. I I I just gotta get it out of the way. So last name, Pumphrey.

So I've gotta ask, what gets you pumped?

Perfect. I'm so glad you did that. Because when people are like, wait, did you say Humphrey? I'm like, no. Pumphrey as in, like, pump it up.

You know?

You're the second pumphrey I've had on here, by the way.

Really?

Drew from, Smoking Swine.

Oh, yeah. We are not related, but I see his his stuff around. It gets me pumped. I mean, I love a pun. I love it.

I love a trivia fact, especially about animals. During the bay to Baltimore, so my niece, Nave, was was giving me facts about oysters Really? Which was great. Nice. And, yeah, I wish I could remember more of them, but they were awesome.

I love a dumb joke that gets me pumped. During all of my swims, I, you know, I tell my crew there's many Katie's rules. Right? Some of the rules are like pretty straightforward, like don't tell me what time it is, don't tell me how far I've gone or how far I've left, don't tell me how many miles I've gone, you know, no no time Yeah. Or any metrics of any sort, right?

And then also no mentioning that you're hot, no mentioning that you're cold, no mentioning that you're tired, no mentioning of sea monsters of any kind, and if I make a joke, you have to laugh at it, and so my, you know, I was able to have a big crew for the bay to Baltimore swim. We had 2 boats and a kayaker the whole time, and when I told the same joke, which I've since learned, I told that joke 3 times, they all laughed like it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. And the 2nd time they laughed, which I do remember I told it at least twice, but I was informed I told it 3 times. But, I was like, okay, that laugh was a little much, but I appreciate the support.

I I I it was it was one point on my old podcast that, because when I get into the pocket because there's so much work that I'm doing, I'm not a dick, but also I was like, alright, just give me some love. That's gotta be funny, right? That was a funny bit, right? Yeah. And my buddy who's a big pop culture guy, he was just like, he made a reference to Guardians of the Galaxy.

And then I returned to reference. I was like, that was a fake laugh. He was like, it was. And we were we were having that moment. I was like, don't rocket raccoon laugh at me when I'm saying my jokes when I'm tight.

But speaking of which, try

to get back a few more.

Please. Please.

Also, it pumps me up.

Okay.

Smiley face. I love drawing smiley faces. I draw them on the whiteboard at the pool. I draw them on my coffee when I post a photo of coffee on Instagram, and I get really excited when people tag me or send me photos that they've taken a photo of their coffee and they draw a smiley face in it. It's really cool.

And that's where I think, like, social media has some potential to, like, connect us in lovely, genuine ways. Right?

Yeah.

I also get very pumped up for, anything from Ekiben. Nice. I just had an ice cream sandwich from there 2 days ago, and it was, like, the best mood lifter that I really needed. I love walking with an ice cream cone, and I get very excited about A 100 and 1 Dalmatians, the original movie, which I've seen probably 30 times.

The animated one? Correct. Oh, okay. I was the purist. Mhmm.

Purist. I like it. I get pumped by Rocky 4.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. That was when he saved us from Russia. It was in 1985. Yeah.

That's important. Yeah.

Very, very much. Year was born.

It's a great film.

So with this this other item here that really has me curious, I may have mentioned what one of my favorite movies is. You have a trivia background, so I gotta ask. What's your favorite movie?

Well, 101 nominations is a 100% up there. I find it so comforting. It's also not that long, which is important. Movies are too long these days.

Yeah. Yeah.

You need to edit them down.

I'm not drunk.

The, the music is lovely in it. And that scene where Pongo Pongo is looking out the window and, you know, trying to pick out a lady

for

his, for his owner, Roger. And every woman that walks by is walking a dog, but and the the person and the dog look very similar. Right? And I generally think this is true. Like, I think dog people, cat people, all pet lovers, like, we tend to kind of, like, take on some personality, right, of our pets.

And, like, that makes sense because they're our family. And, yeah, it's just a lovely movie. I mean, the whole concept that they're, like, the villain is trying to make coats out of puppies is, like,

It's dark.

That concept is so dark that people forget. Like Cruella, of all the villains, like, woah how she is

This is a

a monster.

This is a group that has Melissa sitting there, and it was just, like, no, no, you.

Yeah. I know. Well, that's also it. It's not certainly not a favorite movie, but the movie Beethoven, people forget that villain is testing bullets on puppies. Like, what happened in the nineties?

Like, this makes, like I mean, the 1010 nominations is is much older than that, but, you know, Beethoven, when they were making that movie, and and a lot of movies in the nineties, like, no wonder we all in our thirties have anxiety.

There there's a it's it could be a side podcast. Like, when I have all of these different visions and ideas of what I wanna do, I just wanna go back into, like, nineties Disney

Mhmm.

And mostly explore the TV versions of movies that existed. It's like because I have a belief that all the music was so much better Yeah. And then it just fell off suddenly. Like, the theme songs, like

Oh, so good.

You throw on Chippendale's theme song, it's just like, yo, people were singing with it. Gummy bears probably a little bit earlier than that. Same thing. Darkwinged duck, of course.

Great.

Yeah. I mean, I wanna dress like darkwinged duck for Halloween.

Oh, that's good. I got I'm still working on my Halloween costume. I'm not sure how I'm gonna be.

Yeah. I have I'll have to I'll have to figure it out. It's it's measurements. We'll we'll see.

Yeah. Other favorite movies, though, so going to art school

Yeah.

You know, and and being an artist and being in art world, like, I'm I I have always and I continue to, like, be I gravitate towards people that played sports, right?

Okay.

Athletes. And one of the things I noticed, that's just kind of a one of the things I noticed in art school was, like, a lot of students, a lot of my, you know, fellow Mica, you know, neighbors in the dorms and stuff were, like, watching really heavy, artsy films.

Yeah.

Right? And that is when I found my love of action movies.

You get it. You get it. Go on.

So really, like, Bourne Identity Okay. Born Supremacy, Born Else Metam, that trilogy. Yeah. Oh, so good.

What was so there was a 4th movie. Right?

Yeah. But

Yeah. Okay. I'm just making sure. That's the only one I've seen, actually.

True. You've only seen the 4th one?

I've only seen when Jeremy Renner slid in

and Get out of here.

Locked it

up. No. Those movies are so good.

I'm I'm going to watch them then.

Yeah.

As a recommendation, we have, like, a playlist from you.

Perfect.

Here's the last one.

Yeah. Ready.

What's next for you? What do you got coming up? What are you, you know, jazzed for? Whether it's in the water? Well, I mean, I know it's about to get cold, say.

Whether it's in the water or in the studio, what's coming up for you?

Yeah. I mean, the first thing is I'm still, you know, celebrating and taking stock of everything I just did.

Absolutely.

The bay to Baltimore swim and being the 1st person ever to do that. Yeah, just one of the greatest, most magical days of my life, but but yeah, also so much time and and care went into making this one happen. So first step is continuing to celebrate that. All at the same time, the last couple of months, I've made a bunch of leaps in my work. I've started bringing people back into it, right, the figure.

So I'm really excited and and, you know, pumped to keep getting into that. I'm working on some new paintings that that not only are you using these the image of of hands, which have been in my work for a few years, that kind of repetitive swimmer hand, but starting to, like, attach the hands to an entire body, and, that's kind of a new spot. So I haven't had people in my work in probably 10 years, so Oh, wow. I'm working on that, and then next year I'd really love to do the bay to Baltimore swim again.

So Part 2.

Yeah. I think I mean, it's definitely a swim I want to revisit every year, every other year, you know, forever. Like, I love this city, and to continue to do a swim at home, I think, is just magical. So my hope, is that I'll be able to revisit that swim and also invite some other swimmers to do it as well. So I'm hoping that the bay to Baltimore swim becomes, you know, becomes an annual, annual event that other swimmers are doing.

And I also love revisiting swims, I think it's magical. I think it's one of the best parts about open water, is you can swim the same stretch over and over and over again and it will always be different.

That's a really good point.

The view is always different, the water is always different, you're different. I think as you grow as an athlete and it's the same as an artist, I think, you know, it feels it feels different every time. So I'm really excited to revisit that swim, and I'm also revisiting The English Channel for the 3rd time. So I'm booked for my 3rd English Channel swim, late July 2025. So a lot of swimming ahead, but also a lot a lot of painting.

That's great. That's great. And thank you. So there's 2 things I wanna do as we wrap up here. 1, I wanna thank you again for coming on to the podcast.

Thank you.

And 2, I'm gonna invite and encourage you to share with the listeners where they can check you out, social media, website, all of that good stuff. The floor is yours.

Yeah. So katypumphrey.com will take you to my artwork. It also links to swimkatypom, which, which is, you know, has all of my info about swimming and coaching and, hoping to share more resources, of things coming up and ways to reach out. And on social media it's katypumfreyart, but it's more than art, it's everything in my world, so you'll see a lot of dog photos, a lot of my studio and works in progress, but as well as I really try to share, you know, kind of, how I train and behind the scenes and, you know, hopefully anyone following kind of gets to know me a little bit, gets to see how my world is very woven together in all those pieces. That's good.

And reach out, I love when people reach out. I love when people come visit my studio, which is in the High Latina Arts District in Southeast Baltimore, and, there's a lot of great artists in this complex as well, so I'm always hoping to get more people to come visit.

And there you have it folks. I wanna again thank Katie Pumphrey for inviting us into her creative space, her studio, and sharing a bit of her story with us. And for Katie, I am Rob Lee saying that there's art, culture and community in and around your neck of the woods. You've just got to look for it.