Making the abstract come alive
UA instructor and ceramicist Linda Lopez didn‘t visit an art museum until college. Now she’s in demand across the country
By Katy Henriksen
A self-described late bloomer, ceramicist Linda Lopez creates inanimate objects that teem with personality and whimsy, most notably in her many “Dust Furries,” which are blobby faceless and limbless sculptures meticulously formed through hundreds of dripping scales.
Her signature style for playfully animating inanimate objects can be traced back to her 1980s childhood on a farm in the Central Valley of California. She lived in a home where English was a second language, her parents both being immigrants. Her mom, a Vietnamese refugee, would explain in broken English, “Don’t eat on the couch, the breadcrumbs will make it sick,” she recalled.