Lynn Sudderth likes to get her hands dirty. She likes her clay best when it's saturated and sopping, the gray drips running down her elbows, the slime oozing between her fingers and caking in the tiny wrinkles of her palms. In her basement work space, everything is covered with a fine layer of pale dust. There are half-finished projects, a bucket of murky water and bagged blocks of clay. There's no sink or heat, but Sudderth doesn't mind. She sits behind a small wheel, shaping a bowl, clay smooshing between her fingers, giggling like a child.
Sudderth has been working with clay for 25 years, and she has been making eggs for almost as long. "For fun we were making closed forms on the wheel. And one day, I put arms coming out of it. The first one I made was called Omlet. It was an egg, and it had its legs in the crossed-leg position as if it were saying 'om,'" she says.
People seemed to find Omlet clever, so Sudderth kept making eggs. There has been Fried Egg (a beach bum, lying in the sun) and Eggs-President Clinton. More recently, there was a woman crawling out of a cracked egg ("When she broke out of her shell, you couldn't stop her," Sudderth says) and another egg with an overwhelmed woman trying to crawl back inside.
About 15 years ago a gallerist told Sudderth about Youth Home, Inc.'s annual Eggshibition fundraiser, now into its 24th year. Suddenly Sudderth knew what her eggs were hatched to do -- eggs-tract cash from the fine-feathered attendees of Eggshibition, in order to support troubled youth as part of an egg-themed silent art auction.
Most Eggshibition artists are provided with cast-plaster eggs created by Hank Kaminsky from Fayetteville. They've painted the eggs with TV characters and local personalities; they've made lamps and hookahs from eggs; they've placed eggs on motorcycles.
But Sudderth's eggs are different because they're made on her own wheel. In keeping with last year's theme, "It's a Shell-a-bration!" she molded a trio of eggs dancing. This year she's making Eggstraterestrials With an Eggs-tra Shoe -- a trio of antennaed-eggs with three legs and four shoes apiece. The Eggstraterrestrials aren't fired yet, so they sit around her sunroom, chalky and pale, extra shoes strewn about adorably -- a pink bunny slipper, a cowboy boot, a flip-flop, a Birkenstock sandal.
Before these eggstraterrestrials head over to the University of Arkansas Little Rock's Jack Stephens Center for Eggshibition, they'll be painted, carefully packed (everyone knows how easily eggs break) and transported to the Arkansas Arts Center, where they'll be fired via a special technique that coaxes shimmery nuances.
"After the glaze, you put them in the kiln and you fire it up around 1,700-1,800 degrees. Then we take them immediately out and put them in something combustible. The combination of the fire hitting the glass causes that flashing that you get," Sudderth explains.
In layperson-speak, that means that she suits up hazmat-style (gloves and face-guard), before extracting an egg from the kiln with tongs and plunging it into a vat of paper or sawdust, which immediately flames up mightily, resulting in a purple-tinged gleam. Sometimes there are tragedies. "You can imagine the chances of knocking it, dropping it, losing it," Sudderth says. Those times, it's back to the clay.
Most days Sudderth handles Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program outreach for the Arkansas Hunger Alliance. At night, she makes eggs. It takes about 10 hours, spread over a few weeks, to make each egg, and Sudderth's eggs are popular. Often they command the highest bids at Eggshibition, although one year she learned from the newspaper that her egg was surpassed by an egg signed by musician Dave Matthews. Once an egg went for more than $2,000. It was signed by Dale Earnhardt and auctioned posthumously.
This year's Eggshibition will include eggs by former football star and University of Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, NFL player DeAngelo Williams, former Razorbacks football coach/University of Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles and author and pastor Rick Warren, among other celebrities. And the proceeds from Eggshibition -- an expected $154,000 -- will help fund day treatment and residential treatment for children who have suffered abuse or have emotional problems. Youth Home accepts clients regardless of a family's ability to pay, and its outpatient clinic treats adults, whether or not they have children in the program.
Many of its clients are court-ordered to Youth Home, and much of its revenue is from Medicaid payouts. But each year, there is about a $1.2 million shortfall that the facility must make up with fundraising, grants and insurance fees.
"I love the concept that they treat the whole family," Sudderth says. "I know a couple of people who have children who have actually been in Youth Home. They talked about how wonderful it was, what a difference it had made for their entire family and even thanked me for donating to the thing. When you hear stories like that, it just kind of makes you want to keep doing it."
For the first time this year, about a third of the 60 offerings will be painted ostrich eggs instead of plaster eggs. There will also be non-egg-themed art, gift baskets and a week stay in a Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for auction. As usual, jazzy crooners Rodney Block and the Real Music Lovers will perform; there will be hors d'oeuvres and an open bar.
But Sudderth's favorite part of the event is looking at the eggs.
"They just make me laugh," she says. "People are so creative. They'll glue them and crack them, tear them and turn them into all these things. It seems every year you'll go and somebody will have some new bizarre creation out of these eggs."
Eggshibition is 7 p.m. April 10 at UALR's Jack Stephens Center. Tickets are $50-75, available at youthhome.org/eggshibition.html. For more information, call (501) 821-5500.
High Profile on 03/22/2015