Lynch Creates and Teaches for Junior High Students

Seventh graders from Richard Hardy School in South Pittsburgh observe UTC Artist-in-Residence Mary Lynch.

During a cultural field trip to Chattanooga this week, teachers Mary Claire Hill and Jane Cloer brought their seventh grade students from Richard Hardy School, South Pittsburgh, Tennessee to see UTC Artist-in-Residence Mary L. Lynch.

The teachers included their stop on the UTC campus when they learned through this website that Lynch would be demonstrating her art on the portico of the Lupton Library. Lynch’s visit received the support of Lupton Rennaisance Funds. The Artist-in-Residence worked with clay.

Lynch, a Chattanooga native, teaches throwing and handbuilidng classes at the Chattanooga Arts Center for the City of Chattanooga. She also has taught art history and ceramics classes at UTC. Her work can be seen at Smith’s Crossroads in Dayton, Tennessee.

After receiving her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts with a concentration in sculpture from UTC in 1990, Lynch went on to receive her Master’s Degree in Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, in 1995.

Her interest in clay is combining its functional qualities with decorative, often sculptural forms. The challenge is to push the decorative elements as far as possible, yet to keep in mind such practical issues as glaze safety, weight and stability, according to Lynch.

Lynch’s personal history provides inspiration for her work. She says she had an early fascination with her grandmother’s hat making and her mother’s sewing and knitting skills. She is also inspired by natural forms and complex textures like shells, lichens and leaves; the sculpture of folk artists Howard Finster and Bessie Harvey; the work of 16-century ceramicist Bernard Pallissy; Rococo art and architecture and the work of many feminist artists and art historians.