Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: 39
Occupation: Artist.
Instagram: @codyhoyt
Hometown: Sarasota, Florida.
Studio location: Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Describe what you make: Mostly colorful abstract geometric ceramic objects and patterns.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: That would probably be the “Theoretical Foyer” I designed and built for the city of Columbus, Indiana, in 2017. It was put together as part of Exhibit Columbus. I set up a temporary studio at a concrete factory outside of town. I cast about two thousand colorful triangular concrete blocks over the course of two weeks in August. I would drive a forklift out to the gravel pits and fill buckets one shovelful at a time. I got so tan. The blocks I made were actually pavers, and they fit together to create a pattern on a street corner downtown. Ordinarily, I spend most of my time alone in my own studio, so this project was very important to me because it was a dialogue with a community, and also with the significant architectural history of the town.
Describe the problem your work solves: My work itself is a perpetual cycle of creating problems and then trying to solve them. The more ambitious the problems are, the more cathartic the solutions become.
Describe the project you are working on now: Assessing logistics for a custom colorful patterned ceramic tile floor.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: I’m part of a group show curated by Libby Sellers for Collective Design. The exhibit is showing as part of Frieze’s Viewing Room until May 15.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: Books, music, snacks, and a window. Some drawing materials I guess.
What you do when you’re not working: I go back to where I came from in Florida. Once I get there, I drive to the beach, but first I stop at a gas station and get a 32oz+ fountain soda cup and fill it up with iced coffee instead of soda. Anyone can do that—I think it’s technically a life hack. I also purchase scratch-off tickets, Hot Cheetos, and cigarettes, and then I go float on my back in the Gulf of Mexico for like ten days.
Sources of creative envy: I envy the ones who are able to make work that is both conceptually intriguing AND aesthetically captivating.
The distraction you want to eliminate: iOS. And ice cream truck music.
Concrete or marble? Let me do Travertine.
High-rise or townhouse? High-rise because of Manhattanism via Delirious New York.
Remember or forget? Forget about the half-assed broken Tumblr site I used as a portfolio site for years and remember to visit my new functional website.
Aliens or ghosts? Wraiths and Specters. Actually, I had to stop hanging towels, robes, and/or jackets from hooks on the inside of my bedroom door because I will always wake up and hallucinate it’s a phantom in the room at night. True story.
Dark or light? Either one, but just hovering on the edge of the other.
