Longboat artist opens exhibition focusing on sustainability

Once her usual materials started to become scarce during the COVID-19 pandemic, Longboat Key resident Lynn Armstrong Coffin had to get creative when it came to how she made her art.

"I had just started building my own frames with Plexiglas, but then COVID hit and it was being used everywhere," said Coffin. "I realized I had to change gears and so I started looking around and I thought, 'Well, what can we use?' There's Amazon with all the cardboard boxes. There was house paint. There was plaster stucco, which you put on walls. Just all this stuff I started finding."

Experimenting with different materials that include tissue paper and paint color samples from Home Depot, Coffin made her latest collection, “Full Circle." It will be on display from 2 to 4 p.m. every Saturday in March, starting March 2 at the Art Advocates Gallery in The Crossings at Siesta Key Mall. 

Courtesy image

The collection shares a message of how repurposing materials into unique works of art can lend objects new meaning and bring them full circle.

Coffin likes to be involved in every step of her art process from building her own tools and frames to dumpster diving for new materials. She even involves her husband, Commissioner Gary Coffin. She said she will usually find supplies when she is out with Gary, so he will help bring any materials home that they find around the island.

"I have always loved circles but I really wanted it to mean something more," said Coffin. "There is so much you can do with everyday items that you are so quick to throw away. You just have to think a little bit outside the box."

Coffin said she has been an artist for as long as she can remember. She got her bachelor's degree in illustration and graphic design from the University of Georgia. She explored various career paths as an illustrator for advertising companies, an upscale kitchen designer, a children's book author and illustrator and a sculptor of political figures.