Lindsay Rogers – Red Lodge Clay Center

Lindsay RogersJohnson City, Tennessee

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Lindsay Rogers is a studio potter, educator, and food enthusiast located in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee. After completing two multi-year artist residencies, she received her MFA in Ceramics from the University of Florida in 2013. Over the past 20 years, Lindsay has traveled all over the country for her work. Her pottery has been exhibited in museums, nationally recognized galleries, as well as in juried and invitational exhibitions. Her interest in sustainable agriculture and local food has fueled collaborations with other artists, local chefs, and farmers. Her pottery, writing, and words can be found in a range of publications from blogs to books and podcasts. She is an Associate Professor of Ceramics at East Tennessee State University.

As an artist, my choice to create contemporary tableware is a direct response to my relationship with food. For over a decade I have worked with clay to develop new solutions to one core question: how can the thoughtful design of handmade vessels encourage a reconnection to the food we eat? Over the years I have answered this question with varying levels of precision. I make work that ranges from utilitarian tableware to very specific presentation vessels that are designed to use the natural beauty of locally grown vegetables as a starting point for their own celebration.

My most recent body of work, consisting of the Shadow Plate and Companion Plant series of vessels, is a response to my shifting relationship with my garden during the COVID 19 pandemic. Last year, gardening became a lifeline. It allowed for a stable, ongoing conversation with my home space, providing focus at a time when all other conversations became more difficult and abstract. Because of this, I started 2021 by making a new series of work based on my spring garden planning. The altered rim of the Companion Plant plates are silhouettes of lettuce and cabbage plants that I grew and then cut into the form. The image on the surface of these plates is a plant that makes a beneficial next-door neighbor to lettuce and cabbage in the garden, a practice in sustainable agriculture known as companion planting. The Shadow Plate series is similar in theme but different in process. Designed while standing my garden, the shadows of plants I grow are captured on a piece of paper before being placed on the surface of a vessel. I love how the simple act of recording shadows exposes, in a new way, how the orderly simplicity of spring makes way for the chaotic volume of August.