Linda Lighton

Diva with Rudy

clay, glaze, China paint, and luster

16” X 7” X 7”,

May 2-30, 2025, Snap Gallery

My visual thoughts range from social issues and fear of humanity growing cold to a celebration of the wonder of life. My Vision has come to be a plea for respect, dignity, and connection with other peoples. I want to visualize my hopes and fears and enlarge our circle of understanding.

I need to find out what joy is and I am tirelessly searching for hope. So, I am doing the research. Is it color? Smell? Taste? Laughter? Does it have weight? Is it attached to the earth? These are some of the questions I am asking in my art. Is it not having to do anything? A walk in the woods? God?

I think it is fleeting. You get it, feel it in your body, a lightness. It is often momentary. You’ve got it then it is gone. Can we sustain it? Do we want to? Can you give it away?

Joy is from the earth, full of color and lightness. It is an instantaneous flush in your cheeks, an orgasm. Can you get it to last longer? Does it take practice? The Search Continues.

My sculptures are defined by their sensuality, fertility and empowered sexuality. Past work has covered social commentary, beauty, eroticism, sensuality, procreation and the transitions one makes in a lifetime. The general theme of transition, growth and change. How can we get to the next place with grace and style? Change can be painful: shedding old skins like a locust, or a cotton boll opening to release the white fluff inside, reveals something new and delicate.

I want to make gorgeous, elegant and sublime work, but I have seen the world. I need to laugh. I want to reveal a bit of the terror and vulgarity in life. I know that sex is a driving force and must be acknowledged as such.

I am aware of all my senses. Color, smell and taste are divine energy forces, as well as movement. Often, I can smell color or taste it. I have sensations of softness, creaminess, dryness just from the colors themselves. So, color has a great meaning for me and is terribly important.

I worry over the life I will give these figures and how they will evolve into being through color. Telling their story cogently and clearly can only be done by picking the right color; layering it, shining it into existence. The depth of a plum red. The languid pulsing of purple with blood and muscle underneath. The satin quilt lofted softness of creamy peach with just a bit of tartness. 

Succulent!

Linda Lighton is an internationally recognized ceramic sculptor. She has had over 80 solo exhibitions and participated in over 230 group shows. Linda has worked and shown her art internationally in countries including China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, India, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey.

She is represented in many national and international museums, including the Nelson-Atkins and the Kemper Museums of Art in Kansas City, MO, the Ariana Museum in Switzerland, the Fule International and American Museums of Ceramics in Fuping, China, and the International Ceramic Museum in Icheon, Korea. Linda is also featured in museums in Hungary, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, and Taiwan.

Linda Lighton is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics. She is the founder and director of the Lighton International Artists Exchange Program, which has sent over 186 artists to 52 countries and the Arctic Circle.

In 2016, Lighton received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council for the Education of the Ceramic Arts and the Distinguished Alumni Award at Pembroke School. She has also received the State of Missouri Artist Award and the Award for Excellence in Visual Arts and Education from the Kansas City Art Institute. Recently, Lighton completed two large commissions. The first, a 1% for the Arts program, involved producing a twenty-foot-long mural titled "Ode to the Tallgrass Prairie" for the new Kansas City International Airport. The second was a large chandelier titled "Luminous," installed in the Grand Salon at the Kansas City Museum.

She is a fervent arts activist and has served on numerous arts boards. Currently Linda is working on a retrospective that will debue in September 2025 at The Nerman Museum and has work on display at the Indian Ceramics Triennale in New Dehli.