Chandler Wigton, our Associate Director of Events & Studios visited Lindsay in her studio to learn more about her and her practice!
Lindsay Brenner has been a studio artist at Harwood since 2022. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Albuquerque in 2010 while working for Americorps. She worked at North 4th Art Center working with adults with developmental disabilities. She has a BA in Studio Art from St. Louis University. In addition to Americorps, she served in the Peace Corps in Morocco from 2014-16. Currently, she works as an elementary special ed teacher at a local Charter School. Art making has always been a part of her life.
What new art are you working on currently?
What is your process?
In her studio practice, Lindsay is driven both by process and concept, and has multiple projects going on at the same time and she jumps back and forth between things. Some projects take a long time to complete and the actions required to complete the work are repetitive in nature. She described her work as being therapeutic and calming, and the repetition of tasks aids to the therapeutic nature of the work. One example of a long duration piece is a large textile work where she is hand sewing together recycled tags from clothing. The work is extremely visually interesting, but is also as much about the act of sewing and putting in the time, as the finished final product. She described some pieces as being an act of endurance and are very time consuming, almost like a challenge to herself to complete.
She incorporates sewing, painting, collage, fabric, textile, recycled clothing, and found objects into her practice. She will sometimes work in series, but only when it makes sense. She loves experimenting with different ideas and materials, and likes to let things evolve organically.
What do you get your inspiration from?
A lot of inspiration for Lindsay comes from nature, looking at plants, fungi, creatures, bones, seashells, and the structures that make up the vast variety of different livings things. She likes to take long walks and just be present, looking at everything around her. Lindsay is a very naturally observant person, and loves being curious and looking at things around her. She also finds inspiration from art that other people make such as visiting galleries and art museums to view what exhibits are on display. She also appreciated historical art and finds art and fashion from different places and cultures to be inspiring as well. She does a lot of note taking, photography as documentation of inspiring things, as well as lists and sometimes sketching.
What music have you been listening to lately?
Lindsay has eclectic musical tastes. Radiohead and Cake are two of her all-time favorite bands. In the studio she likes to listen to audiobooks and podcasts sometimes, or often times just work in silence with the windows open to listen to the natural sounds from outside. She loved seeing the band March Forth in Santa Fe recently, with people on stilts and jugglers.
Do you have any exhibits or exciting projects coming up that you want to share, or past exhibits you want to highlight?
Recently she was part of a local pilot TV show called Artists Ignite, where she was filmed in the pilot episode making a painting in response to a prompt about a Bridgerton theme. The artists watched a brief theatrical play based on the Bridgerton tv series and responded to the dramatic performance by creating a piece of art in response to what they saw. Competitors had 4 hours to complete one art piece.
She recently had a piece in a group juried exhibition called Spirit Animals at Willison West Art Space in Santa Fe, a community-oriented show exploring the connection between artists and the animal energies they feel represent their inner selves.
Lindsay also had a piece in a bee themed art show at Inhabit Galerie.
Lindsay also has some current small mermaid themed art pieces on display at “Expressions Gallery”, a new art gallery just west of Old Town.
She has also participated in some “trashion” (trash fashion) shows recently and loves to make things with recycled materials.
