Ceramic artist showing in the MacCallum More Museum

Published 1:09 pm Thursday, July 13, 2023

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Williamsburg ceramic artist Lynn Trott is exhibiting and selling her pottery at the MacCallum More Museum from July 16 through August 25. The opening reception is Sunday, July 16 from 3-5 p.m. The title of the exhibit is Flowing from the Earth.

Trott’s pottery, which often takes on the shape of natural materials such as trees and flowers, is inspired by the natural world around her.

“I describe it as organic and related to plants,” Trott said. “When I started pottery, I almost exclusively made vases. I wanted to make things that were good for putting flowers in.”

Trott has branched out to other forms of pottery, including bog gardens, and a line of jewelry. There are a number of items from small to large in beautiful glazes from decorative only to useful as well as decorative. Her work is displayed at several Virginia galleries including Williamsburg’s Touch of Earth, the Hermitage Foundation Museum in Norfolk and the Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News.

Trott has numerous interests. She is a certified master gardener and for 14 years taught many programs on pruning and gardening with children. For a time, she says that she was even known as the “dahlia” lady because she was considered such an expert on caring for the flowers and selling them to florists before she took up ceramics.

Trott is an artist in every sense of the word, a performer as well as a ceramic artist. She lived for a time in Austria with her mother who was an accompanist at the opera house in Linz. Trott studied music at the Bruckner Conservatory, a music school with a teaching tradition stretching back more than 200 years to the days of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. She also tried out for the opera chorus.

“My teacher thought my voice was better suited to renaissance songs, but we worked toward the audition,” Trott said. “Luckily I wasn’t hired, as it would probably have ruined my voice to push it into opera.”

For the past 31 years, Trott has been singing and playing guitar, recorder and viola da gamba in Colonial Williamsburg’s various historic taverns. Lynn met her husband, Barry, through her balladeer work. Barry also serenades tavern goers. They are longtime performers of 17th and 18th century music in Williamsburg.