Useful Cues
with Nathan Lynch / November 2022
About the Studio Session
What are the most fundamental and intuitive conditions for usefulness? How short or tall must an object be for us to know that we can step or stand upon it? In which bowl will a bird decide to bathe? How might an object simultaneously solicit a loud voice from an introvert and a quiet voice from an extrovert?
Using different scale-based cues each week (as small as the handheld and as grand as the architectural) this Studio Session addresses the seemingly simple gestures that indicate and invite interaction. From the personal to the political, participants will explore how objects formally, physically, and psychologically communicate their use, and how we as individuals can be of use on a scale far greater than ourselves.
About the Lead Artist
Nathan Lynch was raised in Pasco, WA, an agricultural community in the shadow of Hanford Nuclear Power Plant. The futility of this environmental contradiction gave Lynch an acute sense of location and deep appreciation for irony. His concerns for political conflict and environmental upheaval are filtered through notions of absurdity, hand fabrication and the dramatic devices of storytelling.
As a sculptor and performance artist Lynch has made collaboration and experimentation major components of his practice. Lynch’s recent projects include The Same Larry, at A-B Projects, Doubledrink for Headlands Center for the Arts and Dead Reckoning for BAN7 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Lynch studied with Ken Price at the University of Southern California, and earned an MFA at Mills College with Ron Nagle. Lynch is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Ceramics and Glass Programs at California College of the Arts. He is represented by Rena Bransten Gallery.
Logistics
This Studio Session took place in November 2022.