CYM WARKOV TELLS ON HORST, ANNIE LENNOX, CRAZY BEVERLY HILLS HOUSEWIVES,AND FINDING HER WAY HOME TO THE MIDWEST WITH CLAY UNDER HER NAILS.

TELL: All right, were sitting down with ceramicist Cym Warkov... You’ve had a wild journey, from the Midwest to the West Coast, and now back again. Let's start with, what led to your decision to return? Was there a specific moment or realization?

CYM WARKOV: I lived in California for 30 years, and it never really felt like home. After my children moved away, my daughter’s in New York and my son’s in Northern California, they both said they never want to come back to Los Angeles. That had a lot to do with my decision to leave.

I missed the ease of living here. Being able to park, you know, the lifestyle that feels so beautiful and easy. I missed the changing of seasons, even though it’s not quite the same anymore. In Los Angeles, during those last few years, I just felt blocked and stifled.

TELL: Wow. And nowhere else?

CYM WARKOV: Not during that 30 years.

TELL: After being away so long, how does coming back to the Twin Cities feel compared to when you left?

CYM WARKOV: I feel like there have been two different versions of my Midwest. When I left, I had a really liberal, kind of wild, hippie upbringing. I was around all kinds of people, not just one type. When I moved to L.A., I didn’t have that anymore. People there tend to stay within their own groups. So, when I came back here, I was surprised, and not in a good way, to see that it’s started to feel like that here too.

Maybe it’s just because I was younger then, and everything feels different when you’re younger. I’m not totally sure. Part of me thought, “Everything’s just going to keep getting better while I’m gone.” But coming back, I realized that a lot has stayed the same, and honestly, that’s kind of comforting.

TELL: Was it maybe that in your youth you were hanging with a different scene here?

CYM WARKOV: Totally, yeah. Totally.

TELL: I’ve heard stories of you skating down the the mean streets of the cities with a bunch of boys?

CYM WARKOV: St. Paul and Minneapolis. We spent a lot of time at the Federal Reserve Bank before they changed it. We would spend hours there skating and just cruising all over the city. One thing that really influenced me was a landscape by Lawrence Halprin, a fountain with multiple levels, downtown near Nicollet Mall. I can’t remember exactly where it was, but we spent a lot of time there hanging out. For some reason, that place really stuck with me.

TELL: I want to talk a little bit about your mom and dad’s art circles. How did that influence you? Any anecdotal stories from back then that were formative?

CYM WARKOV: I mean, we were hippies. My parents were Buddhists, and they went to the San Francisco Art Institute. Some of my earliest memories are of running around there. We lived in the Haight-Ashbury, so we were surrounded by very free-thinking people. My parents were intellectuals and artists, so that was the scene. I never heard my parents say anything racist, ever. I guess I lived in a bit of a bubble, you know? It was just really different. It was very accepting. One of my dad’s best friends was a gay woman named Mary Ann, so everything felt normal to me. Being around different kinds of people was completely natural.

TELL: Was your family more matriarchal?

CYM WARKOV: Not that it was matriarchal, but it was balanced.

TELL: That had a big influence, I’m sure.

CYM WARKOV: Yeah. My parents were part of the Zen Buddhist community. They started a Zen center, and we lived in a Zen commune where everyone was involved in the arts in some way, including painters, sculptors, and musicians. There was always art and Buddhism and a bunch of hippie kids running around.

There was a lot of freedom in my childhood, which for people my age isn’t that unusual. We were always experimenting, skateboarding, testing what our bodies could do. We’d find objects and build structures in the woods. It was a freeing kind of upbringing, the kind that’s hard to find now.

TELL: Did the Twin Cities feel like a real city to you? Compared to LA.

CYM WARKOV: Yeah, I was such a city kid. We spent a lot of time just taking buses and skating... we used every inch of this city. We were climbing on buildings, exploring construction sites. So comparitively LA felt like 50 cities all melded together to me. I lived in Atlanta, Georgia for a while before I moved to LA, came back to Minneapolis, then went to LA, and that’s a different kind of city. Minneapolis, when I was growing up, downtown really was the center of everything, not like it is now. Downtown was a "proper" downtown.

TELL: What did your parents work in? What was their medium?

CYM WARKOV: My father was a photographer and a sculptor, and my mother was a painter and a writer. She actually started the Women’s Art Registry in Minnesota (WARM) in the 70s.

TELL: What did your dad’s sculpting look like? What materials?

CYM WARKOV: All kinds of different mediums. The piece I remember most is he took one of those old canister vacuum cleaners, set it on an office chair, and covered the whole thing in masking tape and Cracker Jacks. The Cracker Jacks were like jewels—encrusted all over it, shimmering. The air was blowing out the top, and a ping pong ball just hovered there, floating in the stream. Or, he’d take a photograph of a crazy headline like “Elvis spotted at 7-11” and blow it up. So, we lived in a house that was always a studio as well. We didn’t have a proper home with proper furniture. It was stuff that he called “purloined” from the U of M. It’d be like an oak bench or desk from the U of M, or they would make the furniture. So, I went to all my friends’ houses, who had Tang and normal furniture. Theirs moms dressed like a normal moms, and I just wanted that so badly. Always wanting what we didn’t have.

TELL: So, how did you end up meeting Mr Horst (Hair Legend and Founder of Aveda)?

CYM WARKOV: I dropped out of high school in the 11th grade, and for some reason, I wanted to be a hairdresser. I don’t really know why, because I wasn’t into doing my own hair or makeup. I was such a tomboy, a total ragamuffin, and still am. I think it was because my friend’s older sister was a hairdresser, and she had her own apartment and car. I really just wanted to get out of my house and be on my own.

So I went to the Horst Education Center. My tuition was about $1,500, but I got kicked out because I was partying with one of my teachers. I was only 17, going to gay bars with him, David K. I eventually finished school at some cheesy place downtown, and then Horst hired me after I graduated, much to the dismay of the people who had kicked me out. He later promoted me to Technical Director, so I was in charge of everything related to hair coloring and chemical services.

TELL: Ok wow. Was that when you started working on hair campaigns?

CYM WARKOV: Oh yeah, all those black and white model head shots! We traveled all over the United States for shows, and I worked every single day—only had two days off a month. It was the best time, and Horst gave me complete creative freedom.

TELL: I’m curious...were there any parallels between your work then and your work now?

CYM WARKOV: Definitely. Even though my work is mostly black or white, or very monochromatic, I do love color, and Horst’s exacting standards gave me the confidence to know when my work was good.

TELL: Were there any notable moments when you worked with any crazy names?

CYM WARKOV: I did work on a small music video with Annie Lennox once. It was a really low-budget shoot on Thanksgiving Day in a seedy little hotel in Hollywood. It was pretty gross but Annie was absolutely wonderful—down-to-earth and just fantastic. We were in this tiny room, and she was singing acapella, and I thought, "Holy shit, I’m here!" That was such a real moment, no entourage, no nothing. It was just her, and it felt very authentic. It was amazing.

TELL: Sounds like the total opposite of the manufactured LA vibe at the time.

CYM WARKOV: Exactly. Some people were super famous but very humble, and others were divas, and it was obvious they believed their press, but Annie Lennox was just so real. I also did a music video with Bob Dylan, and I walked into his trailer, and it was full of pot smoke wafting out. We chatted for a bit, and we bonded over Minnesota, so that was "nice". That was just another example of how down-to-earth and genuine some of these icons were.

TELL: So, when did you transition to ceramics?

CYM WARKOV: I was working in the fashion industry in LA, but I started studying ceramics at the same time. I was pregnant with first child and got too big to throw on a wheel, so I started hand-building works, and that’s when it clicked for me. I’ve always loved sculpture, so ceramics felt like a natural fit for me.

TELL: You’re back in the Midwest now, in the ceramics community. What’s that been like?

CYM WARKOV: The ceramics community here is different from LA. In LA, people are more siloed and competitive, but here, there’s a real sense of community. The art scene is very influenced by the University of Minnesota, and there’s a certain look to the work here. I didn’t want to make work that looked like everyone else’s, so I’ve kept pushing forward with my own unique style.

TELL: How do you navigate the value perception of your work here versus the coasts?

CYM WARKOV: It’s definitely different here. People are more frugal, even those with money, but I’ve found that when people see my work outside of the Midwest, like in Northern California, New York, or LA, they come back here and want to buy it. It’s about creating something that resonates with people, even if it’s not a trend.

TELL: Do you think the Midwest is slower to embrace new creative talent?

CYM WARKOV: Yes, but if you stick with it long enough, people start to recognize your work. It can be frustrating because it takes longer, but there’s also a deep sense of community here that I really value.

TELL: What advice do you have for other artists/creatives in the region?

CYM WARKOV: Stay curious and trust yourself. Know when your work is good, and don’t rely on external validation. Embrace mistakes—they’re part of the process. Confidence in your work is key.

TELL: How did your marriage and becoming a mother in Hollywood feel? How did that influence your life and work?

CYM WARKOV: Well, he (Mr Schwartzman) grew up in the film business. His stepmother, her whole family, was in the film business. My father-in-law was a big producer and ran a studio. So, everyone he grew up with was someone from the film industry. But for me, I didn’t care about that. I’ve never been one to be impressed by fame or the Hollywood scene. I didn’t really care about being around all of that.

TELL: It sounds like it was a different world from what you were used to.

CYM WARKOV: Yeah, it really was. You know, I didn’t care about the status or the celebrity. I wasn’t into shopping and lunching with these women, as some of the other wives did. That wasn’t my world at all. I was focused on keeping my own values intact, raising my kids, and making things. I was always sewing their costumes, building their toys, just constantly making things. That was really important to me.

TELL: I can imagine...raising kids in that world, especially in Hollywood, must have felt like a constant balancing act.

CYM WARKOV: It was. My kids went to private school, and there was this tradition at the school where the parents hired limousines for the sixth-grade graduation. They were mad at me for a minute, but they understood. And there were other kids and parents who felt the same way. I just thought it was ridiculous. I didn’t want my kids raised in that way, with that kind of excess.

TELL: That’s a pretty powerful stance to take in a place like that.

CYM WARKOV: Yeah, but for me, it was about keeping them grounded and not buying into that kind of lifestyle. I didn’t care about keeping up with the Joneses or fitting in with the Hollywood crowd.

TELL: It sounds like your priorities were always about values and staying true to yourself. How did your kids respond to that?

CYM WARKOV:They were fine. They didn’t mind. I think they respected it, actually. And they saw the difference between the materialism around us and what really mattered. It was a way of life that I didn’t want them to get caught up in. I didn’t buy into it, and neither did they.

TELL: Just trying to round out a few things here. Do you feel like all of these versions of your past selves show up in the now?

CYM: Absolutely. Working at Aveda and doing hair and makeup really expanded the creativity and work ethic I already had as a child. I spent my whole childhood making objects, working with my hands. The hairdressing was really an extension of that. Landscape architecture gave me a set of tools to organize that in a more thoughtful way so I could talk about my work, which is always hard for me, but it gave me a language and structure to think through design.

TELL: What’s kind of hilarious is that at Aveda you were Hoarst's eyes for color and now, in your ceramic work, there’s almost a total lack of color.

CYM: I know, and I love color so much! I have incredibly sensitive sight for color (I’ve had tests done). My brother’s color blind, but he’s a photographer and an artist, and yes I believe Horst was color blind as well. Anyway, I think the absence of color in my work probably comes from the landscape architecture side of my education, thinking more in texture, volume, rhythm, pattern, and spatial relationships. The way I see it, the shape, volume, and texture speak louder without color.

TELL: I was thinking about how your are kinda giving Edward Scissorhands. Transforming everything from hair to hedges to clay.

CYM: (laughs) That’s pretty relevant, actually. I’m constantly searching and pushing my work. I went through a really stuck, dry period in Los Angeles where nothing was coming to me. When I moved back here, the creative floodgates just opened. I don’t even have enough time to realize all the ideas that come to me now.

TELL: Maybe that’s the Midwest? Less noise, more space to create?

CYM: Yeah, I think so. Perfectionism, for me, is the death of creativity. I grew up watching my parents, who were both artists, working things out in real time. I saw them make mistakes and turn those mistakes into something even more beautiful than what they had planned. That’s how I approach my work. I do all the research and sketching, but I leave room for the piece to become something different. If I get too rigid, the work dies.

TELL: There’s something intimate about that, though...maybe even a reflection of your relationship with intimacy in general?

CYM: Yeah, I think that’s true. I’m naturally very introverted, which surprises people. I have a lot of friends, I know a lot of people, but I love solitude. I actually loved COVID. I thrived. If the world could be like that forever, I’d be so happy. My work is my safe space. That’s where my intimacy lives. Not so much with people, but with the process.

TELL: That makes sense, especially since some of your work feels bodily... like relics, but deeply modern and kinda sensual.

CYM: I do think about the body a lot. When I started, the conversations around gender and identity were really loud, and I was thinking about that. I’m a woman, but I don’t identify with a lot of the things society tells women they have to be. I wasn’t raised that way. My brother was my best friend. We did everything together. So I think my work reflects a kind of strength that’s feminine, but not delicate. The curvy forms celebrate that fluidity and power.

TELL: And then there are those angular, more brutalist pieces that feel more "masculine"?

CYM: Totally. I love brutalist architecture. The Barbican in London... I’m obsessed. That kind of heaviness and structure is feminine to me too.

TELL: After thirty years in Los Angeles, coming back to the Midwest must have felt like a kind of homecoming.

CYM: Absolutely. I loved my time in L.A. It’s a city where anything can happen, but it’s also exhausting. There’s so much noise. People talk about the Midwestern work ethic, but no one works harder than people in L.A. Just to get across town is hard work. Still, being back here has been such a relief. I can breathe again. There’s an ease of life here. The change of seasons, the space, the values. I can just make.

TELL: What’s next for you?

CYM: I’m going to New York in a couple of weeks. I have a piece at the Armory Show with the Female Design Council, which I’ve been part of since their start. I’m also meeting with Daniel Humm. He’s opening a new restaurant at 435 Hudson Street designed by Pierre Yovanovitch. I might be doing ceramic tabletops there. And I’m collaborating with Nate Jackson of Fixed Electric on a new lighting collection. Oh, and in the spring, Crate & Barrel is releasing a capsule of my work featuring four pieces that they will be producing and selling in stores.

TELL: Incredible. From Hollywood to the heartland and everywhere in between.

CYM: (smiles) Yeah. This time with clay under my nails.