Today we’d like to introduce you to Lynne Tobin.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I started drawing when I was really young. Art quickly became the way I formulated ideas and expressed myself. In high school, I had the good fortune of having an art teacher who required me to do a drawing a week for three years. By the time I got to college, I was an excellent draftsman. In college, I immersed myself in painting, drawing, and ceramics. Organic forms inspired by nature, and by my love of growing vegetables in my backyard, emerged in my work. Over time, the forms in my drawings and paintings became more abstract. After college, I went on to get a doctorate in psychology. I returned to my art practice when I moved to Providence, Rhode Island in 2003. It didn’t take long after I began working again, for me to discover it was as though there was a body of work inside me waiting to emerge.
Please tell us about your art.
I have an intense relationship with drawing. I love the physicality and immediacy of working on paper with charcoal, pencil, ink, and gouache. When I was awarded an artist residency in 2016, at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, I was searching for a freer, less self-conscious way of drawing a line. I dipped flexible materials like string, thread, and rope into ink, investigating the physical properties of the materials I was using. The first drawings were done on a horizontal surface. Later, I began working vertically on the wall and observing the impact of gravity, how things hang in space, and the tension between something fixed and something falling freely. I also became fascinated by unrestrained marks, and the random happenings created by materials saturated in ink.
When I enter the studio each day, I leave behind the complexities and stress of the world and everyday life. My brain switches into another zone. By losing myself in the art-making process, I connect to something outside myself which is timeless. This gives me the peace and the focus go back out in the world, more open to life and to the people around me.
I like working both on a large scale and also in a smaller format. In my most recent drawing series, LINE STUDIES, the lines are like threads on a loom being woven together on the paper. I am using materials like ink that I can’t control. This forces me to be fully in the moment with the work. Each line I draw is a true expression of what is happening in me at a particular moment in time.
Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?
It is not easy being an artist today. There are so many obstacles, financial and otherwise, that make it almost impossible to live and work as an artist. This is not all bad. The determination and commitment required also fuel the creative process. I do feel part of being an artist is adapting to the limitations in one’s life and continuing to work no matter what.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
I often show my work in galleries in the Providence area. In the fall I was in a 3 person show at the Chazan Gallery in Providence, RI. Currently the best place to see my work is in my studio at 560 Mineral Springs, which is a mill building in Pawtucket, RI. I love studio visits, (and by appointment)! I also post current work regularly on Instagram.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.lynnetobin.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/lynne_tobin
- Facebook: Lynne Tobin
Image Credit:
Portrait – Howard Romero, artwork taken by Karen Philippi
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
