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In the Studio with Andrew Lemmon

By Jack Cantey

Fort Wayne Reader

2007-05-21

I am uncertain if there is a definitive, conventional path one can take to become a working artist. One thing of which I am certain, though, is that sculptor Andrew Lemmon has followed a definitively unusual route to the fine arts.

Lemmon was raised on a pig farm in Noble County and enlisted in the Air Force directly after graduating high school. After seven-and-a-half years in service, he decided to pursue engineering at Purdue University. His disenchantment with that field eventually led him to the Fine Arts department at IPFW.

Perhaps the most impressive quality of Lemmon and his work is a strong sense of purpose. While he embraces and cultivates ambiguity in his finished work, he leaves little to chance in his creative process. For him, sculpture revolves around the Idea or the Experience and its honest resolution. All of his subsequent creative choices are dictated by this core belief.

I talked with Lemmon recently about discovering his calling to be an artist and how he tackles the challenge of achieving an "honest" sculpture.
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Fort Wayne Reader: Can you tell me a little about your background?
Andrew Lemmon: I went to Purdue after the military and began studying engineering. It took me three years to find out that was not where I belonged. I thought architecture seemed like the place for me, so I went to IPFW just to take a few art classes and see if it fit me. I found sculpture and that fit really well, so I stuck with that.

FWR: What was it about engineering that didn't click for you?
Lemmon: It was anonymous. I'm interested in the meticulous, but it seemed to be only the meticulous. You make a part or component…and are never really part of the whole thing. And the end result was dry, stagnant. There's more life in a sculpture. There's an end purpose.

FWR: Did you have any idea you'd become an artist, or did it take you by surprise?
Lemmon: I've done this stuff my whole life. I just never knew it was art. I've welded and I've messed with wood, much to the frustration of my family who thought I was wasting time. And so did I. I came to IPFW and then realized there could be a purpose to doing these kinds of things.

FWR: I assume you're a tactile guy?
Lemmon: Yes, very. I have a great love of material.

FWR: Once you started studying sculpture, was your family cool with it?
Lemmon: Absolutely. They're very supportive. At first, they gave me a look of "What are you doing," but they're very supportive now. I come from a practical background. My father is a vet and my mother went to graduate school for speech and audiology, so this is a little different for them.
FWR: Do you consciously approach a sculpture with what you call in your artist statement "fundamental ideals, beliefs, experiences, and views?"
Lemmon: Almost always.

FWR: And then you find a way to manifest that ideal, belief, etc.?
Lemmon: That's the goal. You asked me before if I'm tactile, and I am. And I'm very visual. A lot of times when I'm trying to work something out it's easier for me to understand it if I go into the shop and just start putting things together. Somehow, a purpose develops and, to me, it makes sense. I want some part of that to be conveyed to the viewer, but very little of it. I'm a very introverted person and that's why there's the ambiguity in the work.

FWR: What's your process like once you're in the shop and working with materials?
Lemmon: I think I'm like everyone else. Sometimes it's really smooth and sometimes…it takes months to resolve all the problems in the ideas. Like Give Guise, I did that in a matter of five days and it's something I thought about for three to five months. Another piece, Narrowing, took six months and it shouldn't have. I never could really resolve the idea. There was always a conflict with materials or I was trying to do two different ideas in the same piece. A lot of times, the problem isn't with the material, it's just whether I feel I'm resolving it appropriately or honestly.

FWR: Do you have a good sense for when a work is complete?
Lemmon: Yeah. I know instantly when it's finished. Usually, it's how I envisioned it in my head.

FWR: Does that still allow for surprises?
Lemmon: Once in a while that will happen. Originally, Narrowing was to have a door. That was one of the problems with resolving the piece. Finally, I took it off and everything made sense.

FWR: Looking at Give Guise, why did this specific idea demand the use of steel, rubber, and wood?
Lemmon: Originally, the orbs or spheres were going to be porcelain. I struggled with that for a couple of months before moving on. I came back after my experimentations with porcelain and realized I was breaking my own rule here where the idea demands that it's something rigid and open. For some reason, I missed the obvious – that it should be a steel wire frame. From that moment, it only took four or five days to finish. The piece itself is trying to convey simply that there's some kind of transference or connection between two entities. I thought an obvious solution to transference would be a hose.

FWR: Why do you use wood to connect the rubber hose to the metal orbs? It seems like metal clamps would be the conventional choice.
Lemmon: Initially, that's what I was going to use. But I liked the contrast between the metal, the wood, and the rubber – the color, the material, the way it feels. It adds soul. I don't think it would have that without the wood.
FWR: You repeat the word "honest" quite a few times in your artist statement. You say, "There must be an honest, rational conception of the idea." What do you mean by that?
Lemmon: When I'm trying to work something out, I don't want to deviate from that idea. I don't want to dilute it or add anything to it. I want to express only that original idea and keep it as clean and simple as possible. It's about understanding, to get to the heart and soul of the issue or experience. It's easy to add something or bring in someone else's idea, and it's certainly easy to push a part of it that's [personally] unpleasant away, but I try to maintain that idea or experience as it is.

For more information on this artist, go to www.andrewlemmon.com