Lavon, 30, crafts together ink and wood, among other mediums. She is often found in her Old Town Lansing studio The Bottega, meaning: a studio of a master artist who teaches. It opened in June 2011.
She describes her art as colorful, quirky and heavy with skeletal Day of the Dead themes. First a picture is painted using a mixture of ink and oil to get the right consistency. Then a design is created on a block. Lavon uses different tools to create her art to give them depth and character.
The Skeleton Society Collection was Lavon's first collection of work as a professional artist.
"I use the human skeleton to portray personalities - so people couldn't discriminate against it because it's a woman or what age it was," she said. "I projected everything that encapsulates a human being onto the skeleton so they can make their judgments based on that and not on race or gender or age."
Animalesque, A Social Commentary is her latest work; it can be seen at the Absolute Gallery (307 E. Grand River, Old Town Lansing). Similar to Skeleton Society, Animalesque represents people with animals. In her younger years Lavon saw herself as a caged animal lacking the ability to function in human company and communicate effectively.
After gaining the skills she needed from college she used her sketched animals to represent people she'd encountered throughout her life.
"Some people in our society still kind of act like Neanderthals, like when they make comments about people because of their weight or political party.
"The donkey is representative of the democrat and republican dilemma. The pig represents girls who try to be super-model skinny but they're normal sized and some people think they're huge when they're not. The giraffe is representational of a super model who is still worried about her weight and how she looks when she's gorgeous just how she is, but has no idea."
Upon entering her studio guests are greeted by a door reading "The Bottega" in a charming white font designed by Lavon. Inside is an office decorated in her work and custom-made pieces to fit the room. To the right there is a flower-shaped clock with a duct-tape stem to the floor and a cozy table to the left where guests are invited to relax and chat with the eccentric artist.
| The Bottega 708 Case St. Old Town, Lansing Contact e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
Through the back door, behind her personal desk lies the actual studio. The space gives off a calm industrial vibe where Lavon has the space to create and teach her classes on block and screen-printing. The studio is well organized and spacious. Artists' tools are easily at hand, something many art studios don't offer.
"It's where I host printmaking workshops and work on fine art for galleries around the country," Lavon said. "I also work on graphic design for clients and offer tutoring for artists and designers."
Lavon was born in Lansing but grew up in Mason where she started drawing as a child. By the age of 19 she worked as a portrait tattoo artist at Splash of Color in East Lansing, but felt she wanted to study art more thoroughly. First stop was at the Chicago Art Institute.
But it wasn't until she moved on to Kendall that the flirtation with printmaking turned in to a passion. After working her way through all the basic classes, she was faced with the need to declare a major. After encouragement from different department heads, Lavon found herself in the printmaking sector. She was accepted into the program before she even fully understood what it was all about.
Lavon said it took about a semester for her to become immersed in printmaking, and soon after she dedicated her life to being a Lansing-based artist.
"Being an artist in Lansing is very interesting," Lavon said. "Day-to-day, it varies. It can be incredibly frustrating, due to the lack of exhibition spaces. But right when you think you're going to explode and give up on the whole town, something amazing happens and you're like, ‘Wow, this is really cool. I'm glad I'm here.' But it's back and forth."
