CONTEMPORARY ART IN CONTEXT

LYNN SIMMONS  SCULPTOR AND INSTALLATION ARTIST

Whether Simmons displays a single artwork or creates an environment—both indoors and in nature—her work always invites contemplation of her sophisticated use of materials. Her process of accumulation involves materials she feels will provoke memories, summon certain feelings, or invite the viewer to imagine a narrative. She favors wood and employs all kinds, unifying her body of work.

Simmons’s works often embody a narrative that comes from the process of building the work. In Oracle (2023), the artist had long contemplated building a bird’s nest and studied videos of birds making nests. A “nest within a nest” resulted from that study, with Oracle inspiring contemplation of home and domesticity.

The artist’s titles often invite meditation on narrative. Field of Dreams (2024) was the result of an initial interest in studying line and materials. The ironic juxtaposition of industrial copper tubing and organic wood planks, with the line of the copper tubing conjuring images of growing vines, cannot help but put the viewer in mind of humanity’s degradation of the environment via industry. Yet the organic twisting of the copper also suggests growth and renewal. The same juxtaposition of industrial and organic appears in the pine needles within plastic cups of her installation Information (2010). This piece reflects artist Nam June Paik’s (1932–2006) declaration that technology is the “new membrane of existence.” Removal of found objects from their original environment in the creation of unique forms is one of the strengths of Simmons’s work, which she has stated is an “ongoing process of discovery.”

Found object and installation art have increasingly gone hand in hand in the art form sculpture. Although Dada and Surrealist artists pioneered the exploitation of individual found objects during the first quarter of the twentieth century, it was another thirty years before sculptors began using found objects in novel, complex combinations, as components in installation art. Two artists are particularly important in this regard: Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) and more recently Jessica Stockholder (b. 1959). Nevelson was extraordinarily sophisticated in her monumental assemblages of found wood objects, much as we see in Simmons’s work. Nevelson was one of the earliest artists to create gallery-wide installations of her found object sculptures. Stockholder—who calls her installations “paintings in space” because of the bright colors she often uses on her objects—like Nevelson, uses found objects in complex combinations in her gallery-filling works.

Simmons has said that she has been an artist as long as she can remember, although her path to becoming an artist came after working for almost thirty years as a graphic designer. Her mother always encouraged Simmons and her sisters to pursue creative activities, especially painting and drawing. She ultimately earned a BFA from Maine College of Art & Design in 2001, where she majored in sculpture and discovered the endless possibilities of working with different materials. She earned an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2007.

After receiving her MFA, Simmons became an art educator, teaching at the Worcester Art Museum (2008–2015) and Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts (2008–2022). In spring 2008, she facilitated the creation of the fabulous Movable Graffiti Mural after-school program through Citizen Schools at the University Park Campus School in Worcester. She has also taught at Assumption University since 2008, and since 2022 she is an associate professor of practice, art and design, at Assumption. She credits her teaching—where she encourages students to explore a variety of materials—with informing her own work, as experimentation in her lesson plans often inspires new directions in her studio practice. Major influences on her work include sculptor Martin Puryear (b. 1941), whose work has a special connection to woodworking; multimedia installation artist Ann Hamilton (b. 1956); and printmaker and large-scale installation artist William Kentridge (b. 1955).

What are some of the biggest influences on your work, including other artists, events, or things outside of the arts?
LS: There are many contemporary artists who influence my work and inspire me. Among them are foremost Martin Puryear, Ann Hamilton, and William Kentridge. I am interested in ideas and the potential that art has to remind us of connections between each other and to things larger than ourselves. I am drawn to work that makes me think.

How does your position as an art educator impact the type of art you make?
LS: This is an excellent question. What comes to mind first is how my awareness of different populations has increased. Also, as I create projects to include in my lesson plans, I need to make sure the materials, process, etc. are going to be accessible to the students. There’s often a lot of experimentation, which has helped me in my own practice as well.

Do you have specific strategies, rituals, or routines that help you work and/or generate ideas?
LS: I look for materials that can help make connections to larger environmental and social issues in often subtle ways.

Accumulating found objects is central to your artistic process. How do you facilitate that?
LS: It’s an ongoing process and one that requires some sort of organization in terms of physical space. For instance, I collect a lot of wood. Most of the wood is in my studio and the smaller pieces are in my garage. Sculpture takes space. It lives and breathes and needs space to exist, as do the materials to make it. For me, materials such as wood, metal, mud, charcoal, fiber, and found objects have a voice and often evoke certain memories or feelings.

In combining different forms of found objects, how do you decide between organic and industrial?
LS: There is often a series of formal elements that can direct my attention to a particular material whether that material is organic or industrial, such as color, texture, and scale. Another factor in choosing a material to work with is, what is that object or material saying? What kind of cultural history and meaning does the material have?

How would you describe the importance of line in your work?
LS: This is an interesting question, as my intention is never to use line specifically in my work. However, line becomes an important element in a number of my pieces. Since I use found and processed wood a lot, many of my pieces are linear. The wood segments provide volume to a piece either organically or industrially.

What amount of interaction with your works do you look for?
LS: I don’t know that I look for an amount of interaction in my works. Underlying it all, I make things to share with others an idea or a different way of looking at something, whether that is physical, political, or spiritual. At some point, usually early on in the process of making a piece, I let go of expectations. It’s the only way I know of listening to what needs to be done.

What are you working on currently? Can you share any upcoming projects with our readers?
LS: I’m actually in between projects right now, but I have some new ideas for combining video and sculpture.

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself as an emerging artist? Or what advice do you have for aspiring artists?
LS: Just keep working. Make your whole life the studio.

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Written by Karl Cole, Art Historian and Curator of Images at Davis Publications. kcole@davisart.com