AACG - Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass

Lucy Lyon

Artist Statement:

I have always felt that, even though we are all meeting up with each other and interacting in twos or threes or crowds, each of us is essentially alone. That brings up a bit of melancholy but it also makes the individual unique and therefore very important.

I started working in glass simply because it is a very seductive material. I have chosen to focus on sculpting figures. What interests me most is trying to convey the intellectual and emotional state of the individuals in my pieces, relying on subtle gestures, a turn of the head or twist of the hips, to express the figure’s state of mind.  I also am fascinated by the way people interact with one another.  I often make pieces with more than one figure and hope that the body language tells a  story, that is open to the viewer’s interpretation.

For a long time I was paring down the environment of the figures to simple geometric forms.  Most recently I am working on softening those forms yet keeping them simple and obvious.

Refining the figure has absorbed much of my time. Throughout the years, I have tackled the technical challenges of increasingly larger work.  The increased scale allows for more nuance of expression in each sculpture.

I have also cast figures in bronze.  The contrast between the metal and glass is fascinating, but I believe that I will always revere glass with a sense of wonder. It holds the light, like the soul.

About Lucy Lyon

Lyon graduated in 1971 from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, earning a BA in philosophy, and was further educated at Pilchuck Glass School, WA. Many of her evocative works include figures in settings that evoke built environment, interior spaces, or with an emphasis on human interaction—all, however, express metaphors for various states of mind. Each piece contains an atmosphere open to personal interpretation and suggestive of a narrative or story—settings Lyon describes as “places where one can be in a private space while in public.”

In 2014, Lyon was commissioned to create a commemorative sculpture honoring the lives lost during the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Her works have been exhibited in significant public institutions, including the Redding Museum of Art and History, Long Beach, CA; the Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM; the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale,AZ; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA; and the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM. They can be found in the permanent collections of the Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg, FL; New Bedford Museum of Glass, Bedford, MA; Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL; Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI; and Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, Neenah, WI.

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Acknowledgment of Gallery:
We are grateful to LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, New Mexico, for providing the materials for the Artist of the Month.