Psyche Inspired: Martha Quirie

Person with short red hair, wearing a dark jacket, headband, hoop earrings, and a circular pendant necklace, smiling

Institution: University of Colorado Boulder

Major: Art Practices & Psychology

Psyche Inspired Class: 2025-2026

Reflections on Psyche Inspired

Reflections on Project 1: Carrier Craters

These photos display a set of bowls and cups with a dark brown glaze. The bowls are textured like craters with grooves running from the center outward and small divets as well as rocky-looking pieces, interrupting the lines. The cups are smooth except for two small craters opposing each other on the outside of each cup, intended to be used as dimples to help users hold the cups.

Carrier Craters

Martha Quirie

December 1st, 2025

Major: Art Practices and Psychology

Genre/Medium: Stoneware Clay

About the Work:

This body of work is called Carrier Craters and is intended to be a functional dining set for four, based on the imagined craters of 16 Psyche. The bowls are all unique and intended to mimic the unique impact craters. Each cup is made with dimple “handles” that look like mini craters for better handability and more consistent connection to the surface of Psyche. With the glaze and surface texture, I aimed to evoke the rocky surface and metalloid composition of Psyche. I hoped with these pieces to bring 16 Psyche into everyday household conversation. It is so easy for space objects to feel intangible with the distance that we are from them. With these vessels, I close that distance a little bit by bringing the supposed surface of 16 Psyche into the physical world, using surface decorations. Additionally, these pieces were born from the idea that 16 Psyche is an asteroid holding crucial information about other potential planetary cores. Although its metallic composition is currently unknown, this mission should shed light on its chemical buildup, and therefore, potential origins. I wanted to bring into physical form vessels that will hold vital nutrients in the form of food just in the same way that 16 Psyche holds vital information.

Gallery View: Carrier Craters

Reflections on Project 2: Unraveled

Colorful fabric strips hang from a line with a small, round, black object suspended below

Unraveled

Martha Quirie

February 9th, 2026

Major: Art Practices & Psychology

Genre/Medium: Sculpey, various fabrics, metal wire, fishing line

About the work:

The Spaces Between is a stained glass interpretation of the asteroid 16 Psyche, located within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Rather than depicting Psyche as a literal object in space, this work focuses on the often-overlooked elements that define it: distance, motion, orientation, and the space that holds them all.

The composition centers Psyche as a dark, metallic form suspended within layered fields of glass. Each solder line radiating across the panel represents measured heliocentric distance, expressed in astronomical units (AU). Where these lines intersect the asteroid, they mark Psyche’s position within the solar system, its relationship to the Sun and to neighboring planetary bodies. Distance, often reduced to numerical values, becomes a visible and structural element of the artwork. Read more…

Gallery View: Unraveled

Reflections on Project 3: Rhythmic Rotation

This is a vase with brownish black glaze on the outside. At the shoulder of the vase there is a horizontal stripe running around the piece that is unglazed and on this stripe, opposing eachother, sit two mini replicas of halves of the asteroid 16 Psyche. The inside is glazed with a dark blue glaze.

Rhythmic Rotation

Martha Quirie

April 13th, 2026

Major: Art Practices & Psychology

Genre/Medium: Cone 10 porcelaneous stoneware and overglaze

About the Work:

This piece, “Rhythmic Rotation” was inspired by the orbit of 16 Psyche. Wheel thrown pottery also has an orbit as the piece is thrown on the wheel. With the white stripe I wanted the highlight the rotational quality of the piece. On either side, there’s a replica of the best model we have of Psyche placed with its orbital axis running vertically. These two halves of the asteroid are placed at the shoulder of the vase where ancient Greek amphoras have their handles. The glaze choice on the outside references the red, browns, and blacks color choices of ancient Greek vases while the inner dark blue glaze is a reference to the color of the night sky from Earth. The references to ancient Greece are a nod to the place where the story of the goddess Psyche originated.

Gallery View: Rhythmic Rotation

Reflections on Project 4: Crater Crawler

This is a small sculptural piece. A round balloon shaped head sits suspended on three legs that come to points. On one side is a gaping mouth with baleen teeth and on the other are thin crevices leading to a central ridge that act as the nasal passages. It has two dark blue eyes, one on top of the head and one right on the bottom. It is glazed with a combo of chartreuse and dark burgundy colors.

Crater Crawler

MARTHA QUIRIE

may 5th, 2026

Major: Art Practices & Psychology

Genre/Medium: Stoneware clay, cone 6 glaze, mason stain

About the Work:

Crater Crawler is a fictitious representation of a creature that could live on the surface of 16 Psyche if it were to have a slight atmosphere. The tripedal legs are great for stabilization as the animal moves over rocks and rough ground. The pointy ends of the legs are able brace in crevices between rocks and the sharp ends also act as defensive protection against predators. The nasal passages running to central cavities on the back help pull in a large amount of air particles at a time and also act as the waste output for the animal. The mouth on the opposing side is modeled after baleen and helps the creature filter dust out of its diet that it collects from small, single celled organisms that exist in the air close to the surface. The eyes on both the top and bottom of the creature would be retractable and they provide 365 degree vision.

Gallery View: Crater Crawler

Psyche Inspired

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Psyche Inspired