Tag Archives: paper sculpture

One For the Money, Two For the Show…

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Dear Reader,

Several months ago, I was offered a one-man show at the Grovewood Gallery, here in Asheville, NC. I’ve been in a bunch of exhibitions and a number of group and two person shows, but have never before gone solo.

Isn’t that nice, I thought. I should probably look at the space they expect me to fill. I walked around with a casual attitude looking at a lot of large walls, trying to visualize the number of works I had to create in a limited amount of time.

I had six or eight finished pieces in the studio, but I really had no idea of what I was going to do to fill the rest of the space. I spent several days dallying and messing about, searching for inspiration. I finally realized I’d better do a Jack Rabbit start.

Jack Rabbit Color Wheel

These twelve leaping Jack Rabbits are painted in full intensity (pure quality). The twelve colors are Johannes Itten’s Bauhaus color wheel with logical names and the limited number for ease of selection and combination. Not so much a system, but rather a reference device and point of departure for artists.

I use “dancing” as a metaphor for the way I work. I started dancing slowly at first, just to get the rhythm by sketching ideas, cutting and manipulating the papers and a rough approach to color. Last year, I did a series of ten dancers, all with a reason to be dancing alone. The reasons were in scrabble letters at the bottom.

Alone At Night

I do work at night when I get in the flow. Quiet, no phones or visitors and I can concentrate on my dance steps. Cutting, bending, folding, is my rhumba for work.

Nobody Watching

You can’t imagine the false starts, throwing away paper, stumbling through a simple two step, re-cutting and re-painting. I’m glad nobody watches me because a spinning dervish would be a slow dance at this point.

It's Your Problem

Suddenly, I’ve got three months left, and one of those months, or more, is for the framer, and I can’t seem to get anything finished. My problem is time, and my old bugaboo procrastination. There are so many other things I want to do with my time and the gallery assumes I’m doing the paper sculpture Macarena here.

If I've Had A Few

That’s what I need. A couple of doubles should loosen me up. If you’ve ever seen a plastered dancer then you know what a boozy artist is like when he tries to waltz or work. You can’t boogie when you’re buzzed or blitzed.

Times Are Tough

Those days, nights, weeks and months are tough. Life and art are harder as I have aged. Picasso said, “The problem with age, is aging. When you get to an advanced age, you feel like you’re twenty again and want to get a lot of things done.” The way things get done at my age is by dancing with a lot of partners, and now I want to thank them.

My wife, Karen, for her constant support all these years, and my son, Marco, for re-working my website under pressure to incorporate my new work. Nancy Swift, friend and agent, who handles all the details. Sherry Masters, general manager of the Grovewood Gallery, and Karen Kennedy, gallery manager. Frameworks’ wizard, Robert Reitz who creates my beautiful shadow box frames.

And thank you for visiting me, now my dance card is full.

leo

I’m never satisfied with what I know.
Only, with what I can find out.

“Nobody Watching, I Dance” is available for $1000.
“Jack Rabbit Color Wheel” is available for $1000.

My work can be purchased at the Grovewood Gallery on the grounds of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. Click on the gallery link if you are interested in one of my workshops.

Please plan to attend my three month exhibit at the Grovewood Gallery to help kick off American Craft Week. The opening is one week from tomorrow, Saturday, 4-6 pm.
Music by Bruce Lang, good eats, lively conversation and a paper sculpture demonstration by yours truly.

Medicine Bundle

“Medicine Bundle” is one of four new limited edition, signed, Giclée prints to be offered at the show. $250. Edition of 150.

Sharks & Hummingbirds

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Dear Reader,

Where’s the escalator? I’m trying to rise, but it’s not working.   Can’t ever go up faster than your bubbles, so they say. Bullcarp!

I’m down 30 or 40 feet in the Pacific just off the coast of Baja, California. I’m here for the color, the bass, garibaldi, lobsters, the waving kelp, and an occasional seal or two and not for the big dark shape, much bigger than me, that just cruised in.

Shark is not my favorite companion, especially in the raw and swimming anywhere near me. I looked for my diving buddy, but Gene Grant was a strong young man and was way ahead of me, churning for the beach. I was a now-and-then diver and when I told people that I was certified, they just nodded and said that I had always been certifiable.

These twelve sharks forming this color wheel, in bright hues and grey bodies, are swimming in a circle like harmless performers at a Sea World show. They’re particularly proud of their 12-tail pattern. Why don’t wet-suited young women ride like water skiers on the backs of sharks, in colorful, big-splash shows? They could call it the “Great White Way.”

Shark Color Wheel

Tra-la-la. Fish, flowers, birds and butterflies, these are a few of my favorite things (you know the tune.) Paper sculpture is at its best when it is complex, and tropical fish, elegant birds, beautiful blooms, and butterfly-bugs are subjects that I have repeated many times with varying success.

I did a series of five large tropical-fish sculptures for a children’s hospital in Minnesota some years ago. I hope you can see that I used a bright, warm selection of color in this example. The client gushed over them, but wished I hadn’t used day-glo paint. Oy! I was cut to the quick. I’ve never owned the glowy stuff.

The effect was the result of simultaneous contrast, where complimentary colors adjacent to each other tend to glow.

Tropical Fish

These images give me excuses to make up a lot of color combinations and shapes. Anything goes when you are entertaining sick children. As I’ve said before, I’m not much for realism or accuracy. I work for symbolic impressions in my concepts, color and composition, but I workmostly for fun.

Sounds very hoity-toity and I wish that it always worked. I have torn up and thrown away bags of paper sculpture that came close, but no cigar.

Humming Birds

Looky the funny pitchur, daddy, they don’t look real at all. Well, little girl, I invented the hummingbirds, flowers, leaves and sky. The image above was done years ago for some client, somewhere, for some purpose, but I’ll be dry-brushed if I can remember who, what, where or why. I’m sure the check was good.

I run all over the color wheel on this one. The flowers are a full-on-no-excuses red. The leaves, baroque in nature, are a warm, neutral green. The birds are combinations of full intensity (pure) color with supporting shades of many tints (addition of white.)

Well, it’s time to wash out my brushes. Thanks for visiting…

I’m going to cut back on my blog to once a month. I’m preparing for a one-man show in October and I can’t do it all and do it well. The ‘tales wag the blog’ when I have to make art to fit the stories.

leo

I’m never content with what I know,
only with what I can find out.

The Shark Color Wheel is available at $1000.
The Grovewood Gallery represents me in the Asheville area.