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Christopher Lloyd Tucker
PART 2: To be a giant
The next installment of “Giants of SD” brings us to Christopher Lloyd Tucker, a digital artist and sculptor—a title that he defines as “being able to do a lot of things, just not painting.”
Visiting him in his home in City Heights, it’s clear that he has many skills; his workspace includes a laser cutter, a 3D printer, CNC routers tools, and extra wood scattered among his various mixed-media artworks. There are also old pictures of his family in Chicago, his hometown and where his interest in art first piqued.
Chris’s art journey is nothing short of DIY and experimental. As a kid, he loved cartoons and comic books, and after a stint in art school, he realized that he preferred working in abstraction and learning at a self-directed pace. Chris then started taking workshops offered by the Parks district in Chicago, getting exposed to woodworking, ceramics, jewelry-making, welding, and more, leading to freelance teaching and an opportunity to get an animation degree. Naturally, when he moved to San Diego about 10 years ago, he got involved with maker spaces like Maketory as a shop tech and educator, simultaneously learning about tools as he taught people about them. As an educator at A Reason to Survive (ARTS), a creative community center for youth, Chris makes it a point to share his exploratory philosophy with his students by teaching them the way he wishes he was taught in art school—he shows them how to properly use a tool, but then gives them free reign to create whatever they want with it.
“I teach them basically the way that I would’ve wanted to be taught... I’m not gonna tell you what to make. Having that kind of freedom in what they’re interested in and trying to pursue that I think is really good for a lot of students."
–Chris Tucker on his approach as an arts educator
Given his background, Chris’s artmaking practice is all rooted in experimentation with different tools and materials. He first starts his initial drawings digitally with a "z brush” technique that he learned from studying animation, then uses machines to transform them into physical objects. Finally, he uses woodworking skills to put them back together like puzzle pieces. The results are works like nothing we’ve seen before, part- sculpture, part-portrait, part-figurative.
“For the most part I use a laser cutter to cut out the digital illustrations I make, and then I put them back together kind of like a woodworking puzzle.”
–Chris Tucker on his unique artmaking process
Ultimately, he shares that the throughline found in his artwork is imagery of Black folk, grounded by his nostalgia for Chicago’s Black community and culture and missing his own friends and family there. Surrounded by his work in his studio, we’re grateful that he can share parts of his home with us in San Diego.
Connect with Christopher Lloyd Tucker:
Executive Producer: Willa M.; Producer: Imani Camara, Lena Shareef; Writer: Willa M.; Photographer: TIKA; Graphic Design Lead: Hailey Honegger; Graphic Design: Alejandro Mendoza Mercado; Editor: Lena Shareef; PA: Melissa Zuazo