"We Speak"

P.Lyn Middleton: Bio/Statement. 

After several decades as a design educator and designer, P. Lyn started working with clay. This tactility provided an intriguing contrast to graphic design, especially digital technology. Transitioning from one creative mode to the other presented an opportunity to combine her design sensibility/approach with new processes and materials. Handmade, one-of-a-kind, functional pottery was her main focus for many years. She made and sold at pop-ups, stores, private sales and at her own gallery in Ojai. During this time, John Legend and Chrissy Tiegen have commissioned many pieces.

Simultaneously other ideas were surfacing that were more sculptural, form-making. In 2021, inspired by the possibility of an artist-in-residency at Taft Garden, she felt compelled to make rocks. During her time at Taft and over the next year she made over 200 rocks.

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Rocks have always fascinated P. Lyn in their variety of forms, their very existence, stability and primordial role. For her, this rock-making was beautifully ironic: a human using earth’s clay to make rocks, simulating Nature’s processes and adding 

a twist. Hollow and rattling, these rock forms are made in multiples, one becoming many, as rocks do. One becoming a mass. All are one. The idea of recording the rattling sound also presented itself. 

P.Lyn received a BA in Sociology and Art, Meredith College and an MA in Visual Design at North Carolina State University School of Design. Post-graduate, she studied in Switzerland at Yale–Brissago Workshop and received a fellowship to study at Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel for a year. As a full-time design educator, P. Lyn has taught at North Carolina State University School of Design, California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts), Art Center College of Design (Europe) and Art Institute of Los Angeles. As a freelance designer she did projects for Cal Arts, Warner Bros., Now Time Magazine and Thatcher School. Her work has been published in many art and design periodicals.