Robert F. Lyon

Clever and exacting, Robert Lyon’s wood vessels include pencils and colored pencils as design elements which often pierce the exterior wall and occupy interior spaces with great precision. Lyon turns each vessel on the lathe, sculpting and embedding color and whimsy into each piece.

"My early work with pencils originates from an interest in memory. My mother had died, and she had suffered significant memory loss during her illness. Her dementia made me confront the fragility of our brain and how easily decades of recollections and thoughts can be erased. Working in my sketchbook, and experimenting at the lathe, I began to realize that graphite and erasers would make good visual metaphors for the way our brain works. A mark made with graphite is like our memory, easily smeared or erased, never permanent." – Robert Lyon

In 2015 Robert Lyon retired from his university teaching position and was named
Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the University of South Carolina. He is
currently a full-time studio artist.