An Interview with MITCH LYONS: Artist, Founder of Clay Printing

                                                photograph by Carson Zullinger

Mitch is a very talented artist and also a pioneer.  He developed a unique technique of creating two dimensional art using clay called Clay Printing  As the inventor and a clay aficionado, he has mastered the elements of this process while, at 74 years old, he continues to explore more and more of its potential.

When did you first start working in clay? Where was it? What type of art were you making prior to working with clay?

My artistic career started while I was a student at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia [previously called Philadelphia College of Art]. While I was a printmaking major. sometime in my Junior year, I wandered down to the basement where I witnessed magic. For the first time in my life I saw someone throwing on the potters’ wheel, and as they say "it was love at first sight". I knew then and there that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Can you describe the clay printing technique/process?

Printing with colored clay is a printing process that uses a slab of wet clay as the matrix, and china clay slip with organic pigments as the "ink". The slip is applied to the wet slab using a variety of techniques, i.e., slip trailing, stenciling, stamping, etc. to develop the design. A wooden rolling pin "the press" is rolled over a dampen paper that pulls a thin layer of colored clay from the matrix. Many mono prints can be pulled from the same slab without re-charging the slab.

 

How did you transition from classic 3D ceramics to 2D clay printing?

For me, and this has been true my whole artistic career, making clayprints and clay pots are the same. I never felt that I transitioned from 2D to 3D. All the techniques that I have developed over the last 45 years are the same for either. If push came to shove I will say that I am a potter making prints.

What was the evolution of your clay printing techniques over the years?

When I first started making clay prints in 1968, I was more structured in my thinking. First I thought that I needed an absorbent surface like paper to apply to the wet clay slab. For 12 years I experimented with paper [1968 to 1980] with some success. My images where also very structured and more conservative, less abstract. Around 1979 I found myself in a fabric store and noticed a roll of Pellon hanging from the ceiling. I inquired about it and was told that it was non- absorbent and figured it would not work for me. But I purchased a yard of it and went home and immediately stuck it in my print drawer and forgot about it. Probably about 6 months later I pulled it out and tried it. It worked, and worked much better then I imagined. What was going on here? This experience was a pivotal change in my direction to develop clay printing. While researching this change I discovered that Pellon, used for the clothing industry, has a slight static charge built into the fabric. This charge helps "pull" clay from the slab because clay also has a charge. One has a negative charge and one has a positive. All of this change slowly permeated my way of thinking more about the process than the product. This helped me get out of my comfort zone and try working "without a net". Many new ideas and changes occurred during this time, i.e., using pastels, transfers slips from paper, mark making using tools and textures.

You use special paper for printing. Can you describe the properties that make it important?

After I discovered the benefits of Pellon then I went to the internet to find out more about the static charge. This led me to the Non-Woven industry, which is not used for clothing, but for filtering,i.e., air conditioning, water, vacuum bags, coffee fitter, and in 1985 Swiffer. The materials that I have been using is called Reemay. It is primarily used for air conditioning and water filtering.

You teach this techniques in workshops all over the country and abroad. What is the response to your workshops?

For about 30 years I have been teaching ClayPrinting all over the world. I have taught approximately 300 workshops since 1983 and probably over 2000 students. In addition I have sold about 2000 of my DVD's: The Art of ClayPrinting with Mitch Lyons. On the internet, the search for Clay Monoprints, finds about 2 dozen sites that show past student's work. Although there are not many clayprinters out there, I always get positive results from students who take my workshop. Clayprinting is still new to the art community. The word is spreading but very slowly. I think the response is great, but would like it to be    far greater.

As an artist, do you have an upcoming exhibition; are you in collections?

Currently I have an exhibition in The Old Jewish Art Center in Philadelphia which ends this November. Another exhibition is in Brad Smith's studio right after Thanksgiving, and for the first two weekends in December I will have my annual OPEN STUDIO, which will celebrate our 27th year.

My work can be found in many personal collections as well as some major museums. Brooklyn Museum of Art, Delaware Art Museum, Noyse Museum and also in university collections: University of Delaware, Bradley University, American University, and others.

What new techniques are you working with and what is your vision for clayprinting going forward?

Recently I have been experimenting with the computer to add digital images to my clay prints. I have also begun to print on various grades of sandpaper and play with the idea of using decals to the clay print. After over 40 years of printing with clay I am still very excited about the technique. I must say that I am blessed that I not only found a wonderful way of working but it also perfectly fits my personality. Not sure where this will take me but I am getting out of the way so it will.

 

BASIC CRAFT TECHNIQUES: FROM ORDINARY TO EXTRAORDINARY

It started in a simple way. We were small and eager to learn how to make things. Basic craft skills that we were taught: gluing, knotting and wrapping produced amazing results to our young eyes and so easy to do. Yet as older adults, those once amazing techniques now may seem more banal, dull and elementary.

However for those with physical or cognitive issues, these basic craft techniques remain powerful ways to explore creativity. Although these people are often guided in projects that have minimal challenge yielding results that are also minimally interesting; this can be changed in ways that do not add complexity but does enhance results.

The first example of gluing which, by itself, is taken for granted because it is used so frequently. And then there is the magic of decoupage. Its origin is from Siberia with a 12^th century migration to China, and has been used in a wide variety of products. Starting with papers that could be found in the home (magazine pages, wrapping paper, and pictures) and Mod Podge glue, this is an inexpensive and easy craft that thrives on imagination.  Papers are placed single layer or multi layered on a porous surface (eg. wood, cardboard, canvas) to attractively decorate anything from a greeting card to a chest of drawers. With encouragement, curiosity and a flexible eye, these papers can produce unique patterns and color combinations that are hard to visualize in advance and so much more exciting to watch as it develops.

Knotting is a primitive technique and can be traced to 10,000 years ago.  Now we know the art of knotting as macramé and it also can be interpreted in the forms of knitting and crocheting.  There are opportunities to use basic knots to create simple projects that are exciting to develop.  For older adults with issues, a thicker element that is soft to the touch (eg. nylon) may be easier to work with than some fine hemp. One can also add beads and make a belt, bag or holder for a plant hanging.  In our everyday lives, we know that a men’s tie must be knotted to be worn and a hammock is a knotted fabrication for outdoor “seating”.  Artists have also used knotting in creative ways  for home items:  an artful chair designed by MarcelWanders is covered in epoxy resin for strength. Merrill Morrison works in a different way. She is an extraordinary fiber artist who works with small knots and says  "There is nothing like the tactile feel of the threads, as well as the rhythm of making knot after knot, until my shape takes form. I often incorporate beading to add luster and texture, which allows me a multitude of possibilities in surface embellishment."

And finally, wrapping is a wonderful way to combine elements and/or cover surfaces. If an element is wrapped in a linear way, it produces a effect called coiling and the coiling can be translated to an artful product to create anything from fashion accessories to sculpture. The late fiber artist Judith Scott was deaf, mute and had Downs Syndrome yet made amazing sculptures by wrapping diverse elements together. These sculptures are collectibles and now sell for many thousands of dollars. Another fiber artist, Sheila Hicks used coiling to create huge installations of art. She was the first fiber artist to take this very basic technique and elevate it in her art.

These basic craft techniques (and many others) require a short learning curve but the possibilities are endless.

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for. - Georgia O'Keeffe

Guiding Creativity Workshops Using Crafts for Older Adults

Creativity Matters blog is licensed under a Creative Commons AAttribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at agingandcreativity.blogspot.com

I am providing a session titled: The Creative Experience- Profiles of Courage and Passion on Tuesday, October 2^nd  at the 2012 Regional Conference on Aging hosted by the Philadelphia Corporation of Aging in Philadelphia. . The following information focuses on Creativity Workshops using Crafts and is an excerpt from that presentation.

In general, I recommend that the leader assess projects for these attributes to provide a successful workshop.

□        Interesting: Materials should trigger curiosity and encourage  willingness to engage

□        Engaging: Materials/project keeps participants involved

□        Clear Objectives: Explanation of tools, techniques and goal; Guidance NOT Duplication of examples shown

□        Success Driven: Encourage satisfaction and completion

□        Socially Supportive Community: Community and  individual respect

□        Project Appropriate for Participants with respect to:

□        Gender

□        Physical ability

□        Cognitive issues

□        Psychological concerns

To encourage safe crafting, it is important to develop projects with attention to these guidelines:

□        No Sharp Tools

□        No Precision

□        No Tiny Pieces

□        No Lengthy Projects

□        No Complex Directions

□       No Difficult Learning Curve

Examples of techniques that may be considered in a project include:

□        Wrapping

□       Weaving

□        Knotting

□        Threading

□        Gluing

□        Cutting (with assistance/supervision if appropriate)

□        Stamping

□        Rubbing

□       Tearing

The participants are likely to realize positive results because the workshop experience:

 

□        Builds knowledge of

□        Materials

□        Techniques

□        Increases

□        Self Esteem

□        Socialization

□        Fosters

□        Independence

□        Problem Solving

□        Expands

□        Creative Capability

□        Confidence

For additional information or speaker and/or workshop requests, please contact Judith Zausner at Judith@caringcrafts.com

"Arts  and aging is neither about arts, nor just about aging. Rather, it is about creativity and positive engagement—that is, creativity as both a goal and a process for shaping the self and society.“

-Steven T. Dahlberg
International Centre for Creativity & Imagination

 

For Veterans: Art Making and Transformation

There are many hurdles in life and, for veterans, many of these hurdles seem insurmountable. The war zone has scorched traumatic memories in their psyche that may sit buried and unreachable. Fortunately now there are innovative support groups that provide a cathartic relief through creativity.

Combat Paper, a New Jersey non profit, is an extraordinary program that travels around the country to help veterans’ relieve their stress from the effects of war. It fully embraces a creative process in three stages. Starting with “Deconstructing”, the veterans bring in their worn combat fatigues for shredding to begin the paper making process, then the shredded small fabric pieces are pulverized to produce paper pulp which begins the “Reclamation” process. They get to reclaim their uniforms as paper. The third stage is “Communication” because when the paper is dry, they can write poetry or draw images on it to communicate their feelings and/or stories.

As they are go through this transformation process of their uniforms and internally themselves, each person is encouraged to talk and share their war experience with facilitators who also have military backgrounds. For most of these veterans, it is the first time they have spoken about traumatic events from the combat zone. Since the workshops are closed sessions for veterans only, they feel safe to open up and process emotions and memories that have previously been untouched. This is a community of veterans helping other veterans to heal with psychologically, emotionally and physically through a creative journey of inner exploration.

Drew Cameron, an Iraq war veteran and talented artist, co-founded Combat Paper in 2007 with his idea to “liberate the rag”. He says "The story of the fiber, the blood, sweat and tears, the months of hardship and brutal violence are held within those old uniforms. The uniforms often become inhabitants of closets or boxes in the attic. Reshaping that association of subordination, of warfare and service, into something collective and beautiful is our inspiration."

With the success of Combat Paper, other organizations have formed to support veterans’ healing through art. Warrior Writers Project is a Philadelphia based non-profit that is a “community of military veterans, service members, artists, allies, civilians, and healers dedicated to creativity and wellness”. There is emphasis on writing although they also encourage other mediums such as painting, photography. To expand their reach, Warrior Writers also offers trainings, retreats, exhibitions, performances and alternative healing practices that include massage and yoga. They have recently published their third anthology After Action Review, which showcases more than 100 veteran poems, creative writing and art.

Inspired by Combat Paper and Warrior Writers, in March 2011, Veterans in The Arts, a Minneapolis based organization, began offering classes. Their direction includes literary, visual as well as musical initiatives. Although new to this approach of creative healing, they have already received the support of ten art partners to build on their mission.

Being deployed overseas will generate feelings of loss of family and friends but it is very difficult to predict what experiences the soldiers come back with. These organizations strive to heal those wounds through sharing, art making and heart felt support.


Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
Helen Keller

Optimizing the Patient Doctor Relationship

Relationships matter. Good relationships have a mutual investment in time, energy and compassion. It’s the way we express our involvement and when, over time, the scale tips out of balance, the relationship falters. It may be intentional but it’s always a shift that benefits from communication.

So even though we maintain many different relationships, what we expect from our dry cleaner is not what we would expect from our best friend. Yet all relationships are invisibly tethered by an agreement of respect and a willingness to interact.

Our patient-doctor relationship holds these same principles. In addition to respect, there is deep seated trust because we are seeking his/her professional expertise in our personal health care. This is an important relationship yet why do some people fail to take responsibility for it? Why respond passively, inaccurately or impatiently when you can actively engage with your physician and participate in your own care?

Dr. Don Friedman recommends that patients do away with their sense of powerlessness and advocate on their own behalf. “There is a therapeutic sense of control”, says Dr. Friedman, “when a patient participates in his health care”.

He suggests 4 approaches to maximize your doctor visits:

1. Prior to your office visit, make a list of all the questions you need to ask and all the information you need to share.
2. Be sure to express your concerns about your medical issues. If your doctor doesn’t know about them, your doctor can’t help.
3. Clarify your understanding of all aspects of your illness: lab results, symptoms, life style changes, etc. Ask if you need more information.
4. Understand the instructions you are given and the responsibilities you have for managing your treatment. Repeat the instructions back to your doctor to ensure you’ve interpreted them correctly.

This is common sense yet sometimes our inner self makes it difficult while our outer capacity for organizing can also be an issue. So create tricks for yourself to get in the game of having a proactive relationship with your health. Keeping a journal helps with both the inner and outer turmoil. Decorate it, flag it; stream your thoughts, doodle. Personalize it in a way that makes it important to you and provides positive feelings each time you make an entry. Make sure that it is in a place that is easily accessible. It will be helpful to create a separate section for health notes and remember to always bring it on visits to your doctor.

Learn to be an advocate for yourself; you deserve the good results.

As Albert Schweitzer, the Nobel Prize winning physician said:
The witch doctor succeeds for the same reason all the rest of us doctors succeed. Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us not knowing this truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.

REUSE, REPURPOSE, RECREATE

There are second lives. Not for us but for tangible items in our lives.

Many of us fill our homes with beautiful things that we love. But that love can expire; things get old, worn out, broken, boring and then tossed out and replaced by new beloved items. It’s a cycle that is both cathartic and potentially wasteful.

So it is exciting and inspiring to witness the movement that interprets things to transform it from its original state. Some processes are simple to approach. In my world teaching creativity workshops, we use empty toilet paper rolls to make napkin rings, paper clips to make necklaces, cut fruit for stamping designs and assorted old magazines for collage,decoupage, and paper beads. While others may require more skill and tools, they all encapsulate a vision that flexes to see things differently.

In Paraguay where a violin is worth more than a house, the Landfillharmonica was created to use recycled materials to make them in to functional musical instruments to play beautiful music. This is extraordinary and inspiring.

In general, there are basically two groups: one group uses things to repurpose them in to functional pieces while another group creates nonfunctional items in art.

Examples in the functional realm:

• Don’t throw out that old bicycle until you have thought about transforming its parts into a chair, table or bookshelves.:
• A coffee shop made of shipping crates and, yes, it's a Starbucks.is a great architectural feat • Using just the bottoms of old plastic water bottles, a beautiful chandelier is born http://inhabitat.com/recycled-water-bottle-cascade-chandelier/
• Harvesting mushrooms in recycled coffee grinds was made into a big business by two young college graduates, Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez, who turned down lucrative job offers to pursue entrepreneurship.
• Stuart Haygarth creates exceptional chandeliers that are made of found objects from plastic bottles to beach debris to eyeglass frames.
• Old tube tires are used as a fabulous source for fashion accessories produced by Hope for Women which sells handcrafted fair trade products made by economically disadvantaged women worldwide.
A bicycle made from cardboard was created by an Israeli inventor who was inspired by seeing a canoe made of paper.
Plastic waste from fishermans' excursions are transformed to create furniture.
Jorge Penades uses leather waste from shoe and automobile industries, for example, and shreds them, adds glue and its set in iron moulds and then glued.

Micaella Pedros, a recent Design graduate, makes furniture joints using discarded plastic bottles by heat shrinking them..

Examples in the art world:
• Louise Nevelson- created mammoth “assemblages” made from discarded wood, cans and other materials and uniformly painted them in one color to unify the objects in the sculpture.
• Joseph Cornell sought a variety of discarded elements to frame them in boxes that evoke memories, thoughts, curiosity.
• John Chamberlain innovatively used crushed and twisted automobile parts to create sculpture that was both colorful and dynamic.
• Brian Jungen uses ordinary objects to create extraordinary art. Whether its sports jerseys, sneakers or even golf bags, Brian is masterful at creating new objects that are artful and amazing.
• So much litter is washed ashore from our oceans and now some of it is being reclaimed and transformed into very special art.
An Israeli student of fashion design is using live bacteria to create spectacular prints that are being used in accessories and clothing.
Donna Mc Cullough creatively recycles using artful welding

The movement that reuses, repurposes and recreates ordinary objects enlightens our lives and provides lessons in creativity. These are made by people who look at the world around them with greater flexibility and a unique vision. We benefit from these transformations just as much as our environment benefits from a reduced landfill.

Recycle Reuse Repurpose Recreate RETHINK

The purpose - where I start - is the idea of use. It is not recycling, it's reuse. ---Issey Miyake

One of the best ways to get people to look at artwork is to create it out of materials that they recognize. -Jungen.

Apfel at Age 90: More is More and Less is Simply Less

Forget the old saying “Less is More”. Minimalists thrived on that belief because it validated their art but the contemporary fashion niche embraced by Iris Apfel makes a different statement. Turn your head 180 degrees and open your eyes wide and your mind even wider. There she is; a fashion maverick, an irreverent renegade, a defiant creative spirit and a marvel of exquisite opulence of wearables.

“I’m a geriatric starlet, my dear, don’t you know,” she said “All of a sudden, I’m hot; I’m cool; I have a ‘fan base’.”*

With a rising cult of diverse people spilling around her amazing presence, Apfel is taking her show on the road. The HSN road, that is. Middle America is fascinated and wants this design eccentricity to be a brand in their lives. Naturally much will be in translation. For example, her classic owl shape eyeglasses will be featured in a scarf print and tribal type necklaces are modified with respect to design and price.
Iris was always a fashion maven. “My mother worshipped at the alter of accessories and I got the bug. She always said, if you have a good, little, simple black dress and you have different accessories, you can have 27 different outfits.” So she learned early. “The fun of getting dressed is that it is a creative experience and I never know what it’s going to be.” She assiduously edits her ensembles often wearing a basic architectural type of garment that can be accessorized dramatically. In 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City presented an exhibition about Apfel called Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel. It was so successful that they created a traveling version that could be viewed by other audiences.
“Composing the elements of interior and composing an ensemble are part and parcel of the same thought process” says Apfel. So she was a natural watching her father in his business working with high end mirrors that focused on interiors. This passion for interiors catapulted the careers of Iris and her husband, Carl. Serendipitously they started working with Old World Weavers in search of a certain cloth and then began to travel worldwide looking for both exotic fabrics and historically based designs that could be replicated by these foreign specialty mills. It was through this work that she was asked to consult for the White House interior for Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton.
Married 64 years, she and her almost 100 year old husband wear the same perfume called Yatagan by Caron which is hard to find so they store it in big containers in the refrigerator. They also wear similar round spectacles. An amazing couple, they have been very successful in their fabric business and, despite retirement from Old World Weavers in the 1990s, it’s clear that Iris’s fame is soaring. This radical fashion icon will be featured in an upcoming documentary by Albert Maysles while she continues to design products for various companies and has the magnanimous vision to donate more than 900 pieces from her wardrobe to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Iris Apfel is an iconic legend with the bravado and mastery of greatness.

“You only have one trip (one life) so you might as well enjoy it”
Iris Apfel