Q&A with Lynne Smith

Briefly describe your thesis project.
I use humble materials and the specificity of sites to explore themes of fragility and resilience. 

What do you hope someone feels when they experience your work?
The amazing thing about art is that it speaks without words. The materials I touch become activated by my own experience and ways of being and moving through the world. I hope viewers will arrive as they are and feel open to slow looking. There is a kind of generosity and intimacy an artwork provides — there is vulnerability in its making and sharing — it can be a proxy for human-to-human connection and offer opportunities to learn about another’s perspective and expand one’s own.

Did you always know this would be your final project? When or how did you figure it out?
There is very little I “know” when I begin a project. If I planned the things I made, I feel as though my work and my experience as an artist would be terribly boring. Sometimes, things just happen when materials move through my hands; my response is often immediate, improvisational, and provisional. My work doesn’t always exist as an object — it is often in conversation with the nuances of a site, be it a room, a beam, or a bunker. It engages with external conditions and the invisible matter that floats around its material body.

What has been surprising as you’ve worked on this project?
Scale

Are there any questions you hope to answer by creating this project?
I hope to generate more questions than answers. 

What was your path to becoming an artist like? 
Circuitous. I hope I’m always on a path of “becoming.”

Was there anyone early in life who had a big influence on your creativity?   How about early in the life of someone else? Being a single parent is what I believe ultimately led me to my art practice. I made a home where art, creativity, building, and making were part of daily life. It was all very spontaneous, provisional, and improvisational — not unlike my practice. I let my daughter make drawings that remain on our bathroom wall while I balanced work, knocking other walls down, and washing dishes in the bathtub. I suppose in cultivating this kind of life for my daughter, who is also an artist, I finally discovered I could have an art practice myself.

Why did you choose to go to graduate school at WashU?
I wanted to be in an interdisciplinary environment where I had the freedom to explore various materials and modes of making, as well as varied perspectives from a large and committed faculty pool. I also maintain a professional practice in design, so being in an expanded community where I might cross-pollinate with architecture, landscape architecture, and visual communication was also appealing. I’ve also made connections in other departments that are actively influencing my practice. I spend time in a neuroscience lab and witness the electrical charge of touch, and talk about how materials, matter, particles, and energy with a friend in quantum physics. The generosity of knowledge and enthusiastic reciprocity of engagement in our respective practices is exciting. As the kid who always struggled to get a C in science, learning that materials and art give me access to many forms of knowledge is empowering and very exciting. It is an unexpected gift from my time in the program.