I am a ceramic artist born in Los Angeles California.  I have been interested in and creating art since I was a young child.  I used to do art projects with my mother and grandmother, as well as independently. As a child I was surrounded by artistic endeavors. Our home reflected my mother’s artistic sensibility as each room was painted in a different color scheme and displayed home-made art, down to our dinning room table where each wooden chair was painted a different color. My grandmother, a self taught painter and ceramic sculptor often took me to art museums.

Lynn Dau Sculpting

Being raised by a single parent led me to make educational choices that focused on being able to support myself.  I also worked in an art supply store for several years and saw many people scrimping to pay for art supplies and necessities.  Consequently, I followed other interests and majored in behavioral sciences.

I graduated summa cum laude from National University in Inglewood, California. I worked full time during the day and attended school at night. After completing my B.A. I attended law school at the University of California, Davis. My intention was to become a criminal defense attorney and work as an Assistant Public Defender, which I did.

I left the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office to go with my husband to Alaska where I worked for a private defense firm. Eventually, we returned to California and settled in the Bay Area.

I have always had a passion for clay. I have been taking ceramics classes ever since junior high school.  Even in law school when I should have been studying law, I was in the UC Davis student art center taking extracurricular ceramics classes. As a practicing criminal defense lawyer I continued to take ceramic classes whenever possible, both in Alaska and the Bay Area.

While living in San Carlos I took ceramics classes at Kollage Arts in Belmont.  Kollage was a private ceramics school that offered adult evening classes.  When my family moved to Los Altos, I started taking classes at Foothill College. Eventually, I cut my hours at the firm I was working at, so that I could devote more time to ceramics.

At Foothill College I had the great fortune to take classes from Bruce George, now deceased. His assignments and critiques really helped me stretch as an artist. I took his wheel throwing and hand building classes and couldn’t wait to take more. Unfortunately, I had to postpone further classes when I became pregnant with my second child.  I returned to Foothill when my daughter was two, but by then Bruce was no longer teaching due to cancer. I will never forget him or his spirit. I like to think that, his spirit lives on in my art and the art of all those he instructed.

I have continued to attended ceramics courses at Foothill College including sculpture, wheel throwing, advanced ceramics and independent study. I participated in two student art shows at Foothill; one group show that included several ceramics students and a solo exhibit in the summer of 2006. On June 9, 2004 I was awarded a certificate of excellence in ceramics from the Fine Arts and Communication Division at Foothill College.

When my daughter was old enough I returned to ceramics, but not to law. I realized that art was my true passion, my true path.  Presently, I have decided to give up the practice of law and devote my energies entirely to ceramics and establishing my career as an artist

Most of my past work has been hand built and sculptural in nature, but I am capable of crafting functional wheel thrown pottery.  In my current work I have combined hand built sculpture with wheel thrown objects. I am drawn to contrast. My recent work depicts objects that have a functional form, but are not functional, such as bottles and bowls that could never hope to contain a liquid.  My work also explores the expression of motion and stasis.