She Makes Beautiful Work and She Teaches Clay | Lindsay Scypta | Episode 540

Lindsay Scypta | Episode 540

As an artist, potter and designer Lindsay Scypta is deeply interested in textile pattern, Victorian etiquette, architectural tracery, and the history of the table. Lindsay began her ceramics investigation in high school and continued into college, completing a BFA in Art & Design from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. For two remarkable summers Lindsay immersed herself in the artist community at Anderson Ranch Art Center as a summer intern, filling her ceramic toolbox with techniques and tools. Finally after two years as an artist-in-residence at Ashland University, Lindsay arrived at The Ohio State University where she completed her MFA in ceramic art. Lindsay was blessed with the opportunity to follow her thesis research to England, where she visited the Wedgwood Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Brighton Palace. Some influences over the past years have been the softness of tufted Victorian sitting room chairs, and the architectural motifs and quatrefoils of European Gothic cathedrals. Following graduate school Lindsay spent one year as an Artist-in-Resident at Clay Art Center in Port Chester, New York. Currently Lindsay is an adjunct ceramics professor at Owens Community College in Perrysburg, Ohio. Working strictly with porcelain clay, the work is thrown, trimmed, altered and decorated, then fired to cone six in an electric oxidation atmosphere. Lindsay ism still continuing to push her ideas and am excited to incorporate new research into her studio practice!

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How do you go about creating your own residencies?

I think you just ask. I made a list of places that were producing clay objects and I sent in an email out and one person responded. That’s all it takes is one yes. I think I have never been afraid to ask. The worst thing that happens is they say no, but I have nothing to lose, right? I think there is a lot of missed opportunities out there. Students that don’t reach out and inquire. They are too afraid.

You make beautiful work and surface design and they are nothing like bricks. Why would you want to go work with bricks?

Yeah, because it is a different material. I have this hard, red material that is muddying up all my pristine white tools. It’s gritty but it is also beautiful and so I made all these really beautiful, red bricks. And some of them we gas flashed, so they turned black and they are even more beautiful. I think it is important to try your work out in different areas. If I have an opportunity to put a piece in a wood kiln, I am never going to say no to that. Because you don’t know what is going to happen. It could change the trajectory of your future work.

You are also a tool maker.

Yeah!

 Why would you start making tools when there are so many great tools out there already? 

Yeah, because there wasn’t the tool that I needed. So I guess this goes back to my father in a way. When I was at Alfred in my junior year he said, Lindsay, you better get yourself an internship. Because that is what dads say to their children. So I went to John Gill, and I said, John, my dad thinks I need an internship. What should I do? He said, You’ve got to go to Anderson Ranch. I said, How do I make that happen, John?  He said, Well let’s call Doug Casebeer. And I said, We can do that? And he said, Yeah!  So we went into the office and we called Doug Casebeer said, Sure! Send me your resume, and write a cover letter and we will see what we can do. A month later I had an offer to come and be an intern in the children’s program. It wasn’t in ceramics but it got me there. That was the most important part was that I was there. So I was at Anderson Ranch in Colorado for the entire summer right before my senior year. And when I was there I got to sit in on workshops and see what people were doing. I was so lucky that Micheal Wisner was teaching a workshop that summer. If you don’t know his work , look him up, he’s on Instagram pretty actively. He was teaching a workshop on tool making and showing how me makes his work and he was showing how he grinds down these hacksaw blades into the shapes that he needed for his patterning. So I made a few tools with him and then I went back to the studio space that the interns shared and I tried it out on my work. So I went back to Alfred and made work that looked nothing like his work but was inspired by what he showed. That one interaction with him changed the course of my work. Later I started selling my tools at my workshops so my students could go home and play and experiment.

The tools you sell, are they the ones that you use?

No.

So you make a different set for sale.

Yeah, so I make a really simple set that is just a starting point. So they are triangles and squares and circles. They are really simple entry points to this idea of extreme stamping. And then my hope is that they will find a way to edit my tools or they will create their own tools that will expand their practice.

Do you put a high price tag on making sure things are not copied or mimicked?

That’s so hard, right? Because it is flattering when someone adores your work enough that they want to copy. But it is also a little gut wrenching. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean there is nothing you can do about it. Before social media people couldn’t copy the way they can now. Because it is harder to figure out how people do what they do. With social media it is really easy to get to the bottom of every artists tricks and techniques. So, I don’t know. I think I have to just not worry about it. I have been tossing this idea of  a how to article for Pottery Making Illustrated around for a long time and I don’t know. I haven’t done it yet.

Is that the hesitation?

Yeah, I think so. I don’t know. I just wonder. If you put it all out there does that make you less valuable? Do they still need me if they know how to do it?

 

If you put it all out there does it make you less valuable?

I don’t think so, but there’s that little voice in your head that says yes, right?

Where do see yourself in five years?

So I want to have a studio in my backyard. A dreamy, brick studio in my backyard. So I did a residency at the Clay Arts Center after graduate school and it was amazing. A whole year just making art surrounded by amazing community members and that opportunity to be in that place and be supported by the community but also for me to inspire community, it created a need in myself to create community where I live. So when I moved to Toledo I had a hard time finding a clay community and so as a result I created my own. So I started a really successful clay community out of the community college where I teach now and I am really proud of  the students that I have and I am proud of what they accomplish with me and outside of the studio. They are signing up for workshops this summer all over the country, which is super exciting to me. So I think that I really want to continue to invest myself into my community.Whether it is through teaching or just getting out into the community  through selling my work but that community aspect has been so important for my personal health and friendships and everything else. It takes a village and these wonderful people are my village and I never would have guessed it would have happened this easily. I feel really blessed that I have such an amazing group that surrounds me and surrounds the studio. Five years from now, maybe I am running my own studio, maybe not, maybe I’m still at the University. I don’t know, but definitely community will be there. I hope I can continue to mentor college level students because it is nice to be able to help students on that path as well.

Book

The Table Comes First By Adam Gopnik

 

Contact

lindsayscypta.com

Instagram: @lindsayscypta

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