Roberto Lugo

10/10/16 • 20 min

Roberto Lugo is a potter living and working in Vermont. He grew up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia and began his creative life writing graffiti. Today, he is known for his teapots, which are for him a symbol of learning other cultures, as he didn't grow up using teapots in his Puerto Rican household. His pots incorporate his artistic beginnings in graffiti and include references to his own background and to global cultures, and he designs them to spark conversation. Roberto is a professor at Marlboro College, and he talks about the different languages of academia, the pottery room, and the community where he was raised—and the challenges and joys of truly communicating across cultures.

Make/Time shares conversations about craft, inspiration, and the creative process. Listen to leading makers and thinkers talk about where they came from, what they're making, and where they're going next. Make/Time is hosted by Stuart Kestenbaum and is a project of craftschools.us.

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Rowland Ricketts

Rowland Ricketts is an indigo grower and artist based in Bloomington, Indiana. He studied traditional indigo making and dyeing techniques in Japan, where he was living after college and where he met his wife, Chinami, who is a weaver. He came to dyeing after he realized that his photography work was polluting the streams around his farmhouse in the rural Nara prefecture. Here, Rowland talks about originality, process, living with nature, discovery, and how to find a work you never retire from.

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Cynthia Schira

Cynthia Schira is a weaver and designer living in Westport, New York. She taught art for nearly 30 years, and has been a practicing artist since attending RISD on scholarship as a young woman. She happened into weaving because of a scholarship opportunity, but it fit her. In the course of her career, Cynthia has given special attention to working with computers and the Jacquard loom—an early precursor to the modern computer—to explore the digital qualities and possibilities of the art form. Today, Cynthia has retired from teaching, but not from making; she continues to make new projects, collaborate with other artists, and find new synchronicities between art and the world around her.