Today we’d like to introduce you to Nadia Lezcano.
Nadia, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started making art here and there as a kid to have fun and used to love drawing everywhere I could. It wasn’t until high-school where I first started sculpting and working with 3D materials, that I got to experience more of the physicality of art making and fell in love with that process. I did my first two years of college at the Community College of Baltimore County so I could save on funds and work on my portfolio at the same time which allowed me to transfer into Maryland Institute College of Art to finish my Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Ceramics with not only a great community but also great scholarships. At MICA I learned so much about ceramics and I fell in love all over with sculpting and the process of making work. It was definitely a struggle for me at first because I can be an impatient person, but clay is a very loving material to work with. I met plenty of wonderful people and artists at MICA that even throughout the COVID pandemic I was able to find work in ceramics studio spaces which allowed me to continue making and being immersed in the material after college. I am currently working with Chesapeake Arts Center in their ceramics department and I am a part of the Goxxip Girls Collective in Baltimore.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It was never a smooth road and I wouldn’t say I started off on the right foot either. Choosing art was not my first choice for a career in life and I worked hard to make sure I would be able to afford this choice. I kept a full schedule of classes and worked all throughout school both on and off campuses. There were a lot of days that I would sleep in my car or tucked somewhere under a school table so I would have more time in the studio to work on my art. At the start of the COVID pandemic I struggled a lot with heartbreak and the loss of a dearly beloved family member and I felt that I had hit the limits of what I could do with art. It took me a few years to come back to loving the process of art making and to really feel like I could move forward with my art career overall. I have been incredibly blessed to have a wonderful community of friends and artists and that has definitely been the reason that I am always able to pull myself back up.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a sculptor who mainly works in ceramics. I have a classical arts background and I used to work a lot in steel and plaster, but now I really enjoy mixing my own clay bodies, problem solving bigger sculptures, and firing my own works. I mainly work representationally and will work from live models or self sourced references. Within the past 2 years I have been mostly sculpting animals and have been focusing on cats and roosters as a parallel for my own life. Frogs will be added into this mix pretty soon!
I am most proud of my ability to problem solve and the majority of my art pieces are typically ideas that have sprouted from the set-backs I have in the process of making or from simply asking myself how I can approach something from a different perspective. I think this desire to really delve into all the intricacies behind a project – from making the clay body, to engineering dynamic structures, among so many other parts of the process – is what has made my work different from just an artist who sculpts.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
Among so many wonderful parts of my community in the arts and in Baltimore, I have been pushed the most by Trisha Kyner and David East to do wonderful things. These two artists were, and still are, my biggest cheerleaders not just in school but even out of their classrooms. I am always happy to have the time to sit down and talk with them about our work and even about life in general and I know that I will walk away feeling grounded in my practice and hungry to work for more.
I am also happy to have met Camilla Ascher, whom I work with at Chesapeake Arts Center. She has been a great friend of mine for a few years now and we both push ourselves to work in the studio and to push past what we think we can do for our art. She has been a wonderful studio mate and a kind friend in the entire time I’ve known her.
My best friend Rachel Patterson has been someone who I can share the most with and she has been not just my most fervent cheerleader, but also someone whose company I can always count on. She knows how to dig into my process and to set me straight, and she will do so while building me up. I love working with Rachel on any project and I know that she is someone who has supported me even in the worst of times and I’m profoundly grateful for her presence in my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nadialezcano.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/n.a.lezcano/?hl=en
