Lynne Smith

Lynne Smith is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator. Across studio, pedagogical, and social practice, materials serve as conduits for embodiment, knowledge gathering, and connection. Her work explores material agency, entanglement, and layered ecologies through sustained attention to landscapes and “sites-within-sites.” Poetic narratives unfold – and are retold – in weavings, sculptures, and installations.

Smith is researching a small retention pond tucked into the far edge of the National Building Arts Center in Sauget, Illinois – a village formed for industrial production and known for the toxic accumulations that remain in the water, air, and land. Through an artistic and archaeological process of ‘Reverse Extraction,’ Smith removes foundry detritus from the pond as both a gesture of care and a prompt to reconsider its value. Ceramic tubes for molten metal, iron, steel, slag, and glass are celebrated alongside ruderal plants and the resilient songs of insects and frogs. Her work asks how sites marked by extraction and contamination might be reimagined through relational activities, deep attention, and material transformation.