Text reads Lavinia Lindsay, “I love learning about how others work and using that knowledge to sharpen my own skills."

"Also having a community to bounce ideas off of is great – especially when you can ask about things like chine-collé adhesives and paper soaking, without being looked at funny.”

LAVINIA LINDSAY is fascinated by the idea home, and uses printmaking to explore such notions. Growing up in Niagara Falls Ontario, she has a unique love-hate with her hometown, which is often a source of inspiration for her work. The tackiness of the tourist industry causes her to reflect on what it means for a place like Niagara to be called home. Lavinia loves being outside and enjoying the powerful yet poetic qualities of nature, which she also tries to recreate in her work. Her prints are small, as a means of inviting the viewer to come up close and quietly enjoy them.
We had the chance to ask Lavinia Lindsay some pressing questions about her artistic practice to figure out how she works. 

Lavinia, as a printmaker, what is your experience creating traditional prints in a digital world?

It’s very soothing to work away from the digital world, because it gives me a chance to connect with my ideas without a lot of distraction.

Your dedication to the laborious process of mezzotint is admirable! Why is this process so integral to your art?

"D’awh, thank you! I think that mezzotint has grown into a form of meditation for me at this point. Rocking my plates is a nice moment in the process where I can be with my ideas before I fully bring them to life. There’s also just something so fascinating about how a mezzotint looks up close that makes it worthwhile for me to spend a lot of time creating one."

You often work small. What are the benefits and challenges of working at that size?

"I’ve always found smaller plates and prints a lot easier to move around, store, and work on in general. And on a conceptual level, there’s something powerful and poetic in forcing people to come close to your work if they’d like to take a look, which I really like. I’d say challenges come about when people are interested in buying my prints. My process is pretty laborious, but I feel strange about charging a lot of money for something small."

The printmaking world is inherently built on the concept of community. Can you speak to that and how it plays into your art-making process, if at all?

"Since a lot of printmaking techniques can be done in many different ways, I love learning about how others work and using that knowledge to sharpen my own skills. Also having a community to bounce ideas off of is great – especially when you can ask about things like chine-collé adhesives and paper soaking, without being looked at funny."

How did you know that you wanted to be a printmaker? Tell us about the first time you realized you could do this as a career.

"The first time I had strangers telling me they connected with an etching I made, I knew I wanted to get serious about printmaking. And it’s something that’s never felt forced, either. It’s hard to articulate, but there’s just something about the nuances of the medium that really suit how I think, and create."

If you weren’t a printmaker – and I know that must be hard to imagine – what would you be?

"Oh geez. A hot mess? Lol. If I wasn’t a printmaker I think I’d be a writer. I love writing fiction, and in high school I was actually torn between taking Visual Art or Creative Writing in university."

"Fun fact: One of the reasons I didn’t go to school for writing was because I got sick near the end of grade twelve, and decided I should go to the school closest to home that I had been accepted to, which was Guelph. At the time, Guelph didn’t have an undergraduate Creative Writing program. So I took art, and here we are!"

What was your experience shifting from the Guelph to the Toronto art community?

"If I’m being honest, it was tough. I had a lot of anxiety about working in a new space around new people when I first moved, and a lot of self-doubt about belonging. And then, of course, the pandemic hit.""But I will say that I like that how the Toronto Art Community has many different levels within it. Like, there are lots of very people who have shown work in fancy places around the world, and there are people who are content just making funky little prints for themselves. And they work side-by-side, in places like Open Studio, which is really cool to be part of.""Finding my voice in the big city has been an adventure not made any easier by covid, but we can’t grow without a good challenge."

If you could be any printmaking tool or material, what would you be and why?

"My first unfiltered answer to this was that I would be a piece of tarlatan. But like, that reeeaallyy gunky one, that somehow always has a spot clear enough to use when you’re trying to finish up your project in a rush. Lol."

What other artists inspire you and the work you do?

"Lately, a lot of my inspiration has come from sources outside the visual art world. Writers like Alice Munro remind me how cool it can be to zoom in on details of mundane life. And the adventurer Colin O’Brady has also been a big inspiration, because of the endurance-based accomplishments he’s achieved (like crossing Antarctica by himself on foot, for example). His hard work, passion, and resilience towards things that aren’t mainstream help inspire me to not lose hope in the things that bring me fulfillment, just because they’re not widely understood."

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given about making art or being in the art world?

“Premature criticism interferes with the creative process.”
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