Kingston artist, Lynn Herring, just graduated this spring with honors from SUNY New Paltz with an MFA in Sculpture. Her thesis work is about helping to heal cultural divisions by bringing adults together through play. Her undergrad work was done at SVA where she graduated with honors in 2008 and earned a BFA in sculpture. He work has been shown from New York to Istanbul, Turkey. Most recently, Lynn has reengineered Tic Tac Toe to help “Make America Relate Again”. The game she created is called XOX! Share the Love®. XOX! Share the Love is a thoughtfully designed and skillfully crafted work of art that utilizes ubiquitous iconic symbols, playful shapes and forms, and vibrant colors to attract and to stimulate viewer interaction. With familiar elements of the universally recognized TIC TAC TOE game, XOX! Share the Love is a reimagined strategic game that reminds adults of the pleasures of their childhood. By design, it encourages engagement and connection over division, joy and resilience over aggression and defensiveness. It is a project that transcends the boundaries of any one discipline with research rooted in social psychology related to play, visual communications including principles of advertising and graphic design, game development, digital fabrication, sculptural skills and hand finishing, public art, social practice art and community engagement. This work originated from my interest in the question: How can an artwork bring people together?

lynn@lynnherringartist.com