Kate Mueller is a Los Angeles based installation artist and welder whose work is designed to draw your awareness to the awe that already exists around you. She began building her own coffin at 19 and has carried it — and the contemplation of mortality — through every chapter of her life since. In this conversation we trace her journey from a conservative religious upbringing to a monastery in Romania to walking the Camino de Santiago alone, and into the foundational belief that emerged: that people are largely good, that we are here for one another, and that nature can hold all of our differences.
"I'm the last to know why I do things," Kate Mueller said to me during this interview. What an enticing revelation, especially as Kate and I looked back on the creative projects that have come through her, starting with a coffin she began building when she was 19, that sits in the middle of her living room at 35. She told me it is a good way to not watch too much Netflix. Not only has her coffin been with her as a reminder of our shared truth, but she's made friends through it, hosting coffin parties in LA where people gather to explore mortality over a glass of wine. Great way to skip some small talk!
In my experience, the exploration or the contemplation of our own mortality has a helpful side effect — it orients us back to our life. The nowness (whether you like it or not!) of it all. And her work also takes us there. Kate's large scale installations, including String of Light That Connects All Things, a series of steel sculptural forms placed along the Southern California shoreline at sunset, are designed not to be looked at but to draw your awareness to what's already there. We talk about her orientation towards the awe of the natural world, how she gathered her friends and family across political differences following the 2024 election for an installation on the beach, and what that experience opened up for her.
Kate's journey has been true to her from the beginning, and her life as an artist has been informed by her own pilgrimage for truth. From growing up homeschooled in a conservative and religious household, to being met by a nun at the train station in Romania to live in a monastery — where she hoped to find the clarity and courage to be honest with her family about her faith — to walking the Camino de Santiago alone in her early 20s, she found her foundational truth. A belief that people are good, that we are here to care for one another, and that anyone can mirror back to you a spark of the divine. And that nature has a way of holding us all.
This conversation will invite you to step into the awe that exists right here in this lifetime.
In this episode we talk about:
Links to Kate's Work:
Kate's Coffin (Feature in LA Times)
String of Light That Connects All Things
Upcoming Installation May 23rd Oxnard,CA
About Kate Mueller
Kate Mueller is a Los Angeles–based installation artist whose work feels like an invitation to step into another astral plane. Her large-scale sculptural forms shift perception, drawing viewers into a heightened state of awareness. Merging welding with transdisciplinary techniques, Mueller constructs immersive works that engage movement, scale, and presence, making participation central to the experience. Her sculptures are designed to be entered, circled, and encountered physically, drawing attention to the immediacy of the moment, the awe of the natural world, and the interconnectedness of all things.
CONNECT WITH KATE
CONNECT WITH THE TRUTH IS
Instagram: @thetruthispodcast
YouTube: @thetruthis_pod
Substack: Kathryn Flaschner
CREDITS
Hosted by Kathryn Flaschner
Production & Editing by Anton LaPlume
Music by Will Savino — wsavino.com
Visual Identity by Sarah Gainor & Jonathan Bush
Advised by Natalie Tulloch