amy lynch and katie baptiste – metal METcALfe
The sisters and 'Grow'.....
What does the term Grow mean to you in your art?
Grow is such a great metaphor for so many aspects of the creative process. Everyday is an opportunity for growth in learning, understanding, insight and reflection. In terms of our material of choice: 44-gallon drum we have grown in our knowledge and understanding of how it behaves and performs. In terms of our working processes, we are continually growing through constant experimentation, and refinement. It's also a wonderful metaphor for periods of dormancy or pause, which is something essential as part of growth over a sustained period of time....yet something we haven't yet mastered in our creative practice...it's all go usually!
How has your art/process/aesthetic grown over time?
We have kept artworks from different stages in our creative practice. It is fascinating to see the evolution of detail, delicacy and complexity in our work. What positive change do you hope you evoke in viewers of your art? Our practice is really about two main themes: having fun and caring for Mother Nature. Through our colourful artworks we hope people will take away and talk about the repurposing of existing materials, the elevation of the hard-working, humble 44-gallon drum and how we can look at things through different lenses.
What is your favourite thing to grow? Anything you can’t grow?
We love growing vegetables...memories of sitting, picking and eating warm grapes straight off the vine, climbing our enormous orange tree to get the amazing fruit as well walking through the vege patch and brushing up alongside the sweet smelling mint.
Is there anything from your childhood that’s had spurred growth and develop into your artwork?
Thinking along the lines of you grew and your art grew with you. We were born and raised in England, not far from London. Our uncle would buy us an annual membership to the Royal Horticultural Society, and Wisley was just down the road. So every Sunday we would visit to see the beautiful plants and trees, climb the rockery, visit the hothouse filled with Orchids and admire the landscaped gardens. This strongly influences the nature inspired artworks within our practice - although it is only now that we are consciously drawing on that experience.
Favourite plant?
Katie: Monstera
Amy: Snap Dragon or Gerbera
And a bit more about them...
METcALfe (Metal Metcalfe) is a creative business combining Amy Lynch & Katie Baptiste skill sets.
Having started as an experiment in October 2020 between them; their colourful, stylised, playful artworks continue to be in demand from customers, stores and galleries alike. Amy brings her product and metal fabrication skills to the organisation, while Katie brings her pattern, colour and material expertise. The results are energetic, fun and accessible artworks and products.
Two creative, curly-haired sisters having great fun, designing, problem solving and fabricating metal sculptures and products. Play and experimentation are fundamental to their practice. They grew up making around the kitchen table and lockdown in 2020 enabled a period of time to reflect and reference back to ground roots. Having both worked within various design roles for global brands they observed volumes of waste within manufacture and now within our their design practice challenge, incorporate and ultimately work to minimise waste and seek opportunities to add value to existing materials or resources.
Getting grubby, playing with materials and working through solutions is very much their happy space, therefore work very rarely feels like work! For the first part of their creative careers we were working in different hemispheres and in different sectors, now working collaboratively and combining experiences in the same space enables them to address issues within their locality but with their experiences from a global lens. A privileged position in their opinion.
AMY LYNCH
BA (Hons) Furniture/Product Design, Kingston University, UK
KATIE BAPTISTE
MA (Hons) Interior Design, UCLAN, UK
BA (Hons) Fashion Design with Technology, MMU, UK
