Tag Archives: paper sculpture

Country Kitchens

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Dear Reader,

Have you seen some of the beautiful country kitchens in the design and decorating magazines? How lovely, how charming, but not at all the way that I remember farm and mining town kitchens in the 30s.

Things were there for utility, not for colorful charm. Black cast-iron wood stoves with chrome fittings and tin stovepipes that poked through the roof.

There was a rough wood box for kindling, a breadbox, tin containers with faded labels, pull-out bins for flour and cornmeal, faded curtains, wood countertops and a kitchen table with all the paint worn off, but very little color. The color I remember is the “dirty-thirties” green glass, which was awful.

The kitchens were well stocked, but everything was faded from age and hard use, especially the pots and pans that were beat-up cast-iron, tin and copper. There were wooden spoons, forks and spatulas for cooking, and mismatched “silverware” for the table. There were plenty of ceramic mixing bowls, soup bowls and plates for family, friends and farm hands, and the kitchen was the warmest room in the house, summer and winter. I loved being there.

Water came from a well with a hand pump by the sink or a larger pump outside that had to be primed and pumped. Sometimes, the sink was wood and water drained into a “slop-bucket.” In the back yard was our two-holer.

Rustic Leaves

This rustic, autumn leaf color wheel is a combination of pale and dark color schemes.
The six primary and secondary colors were tinted, then toned down slightly with subtle sponged-on texture. This texture, a splatter of neutral colors and black, frames an arrangement of small, randomly colored leaves. Seems appropriate for today’s subject.

Country Kitchen

I start these kitchen still-life sculptures by cutting, texturing and painting dozens of bowls, vases, lanterns, tins, implements and foods, not knowing how they will be used. I  choose from this large inventory when composing a piece. (I still have several boxes of kitchen elements left over.) I seldom cut and finish something just for a composition. The first example is a dark, earthy color scheme using a wide range of neutral colors that are enhanced with oil pastels after everything is in place; the paper is mostly acid-free museum board that is sometimes used as mat board for framing. The board is difficult to cut on a bias.

Country Kitchen

Everything is old and beat up in this composition, and the enamel is almost all chipped off the coffee pot, leaving rust and wear. The color scheme is warm and tinted neutrals.

Country Kitchen

Very close values in the yellow-yellow orange range of neutral colors are balanced by small, cool, blue and blue-green elements. The rusts are made of iron in fluid that is sprayed with a reactive agent that makes it rust.

Country Kitchen

The color scheme above combines dark, intense hot color with dark neutral cool hues. The values (dark and light) are very close across the entire spectrum. Several intense yellow, green and blue elements are the transition and balance between the two extremes.

Country Kitchen

The country kitchen still life displays the prevailing features of my technique. The work exhibits close value and warm and cool comparisons. In a sea of dark, neutral, cool hues, an arrangement of hot elements on the left side of the composition is balanced by smaller warm objects on the right. The focal point is the central grouping of a bright, yellow pitcher, lemons and a vase with a grouping of bright green leaves for cool relief …aaaaahhhhhhhh…..

That’s quite a lot for the moment. I think I’ll make a peanut butter sandwich and have a cool glass of freshly churned buttermilk…aaaaaaahhhhhhhh……

Thanks for visiting me.

leo

Country Kitchen #3, 26″ x 20″, is available at the Cut, Bend, Fold, ColorColorColor exhibit at the Grovewood Gallery. $2000.

Other kitchen sculptures are available at the Cut, Bend, Fold, ColorColorColor exhibit at the Grovewood Gallery in Asheville, NC.

Running Through Sheets

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Dear Reader,

Did’ja ever run past Mrs. Tackaberry’s house where the Chow Chow dogs charge the fence to eat kids? Then run down the sidewalk into the Thompsons’ big backyard where clotheslines are strung all over, and the bright, white sheets are waving like sails and the colored clothes are snapping in the wind?

We ran with arms outstretched through the sheets as they wafted over us. Then Mrs. Thompson, who worked all Monday, washday, to get the clothes out in the sun, would chase us away.

Hot day, boys running
Into wind-whipped, bright white sheets.
Dodging colored clothes.

We lived a mile high in the Black Hills and the air was clean, the sky pure blue, and the grass bright green. The sky, the grass, and those colored clothes whipping and snapping in the wind are my early memories of color.

Clothespins and clotheslines,
Smooth, clean sheets across my face.
Smell of fresh laundry. 

Rhino Color Wheel

The rhino color wheel was designed like a child’s toy, and the center “fan” is an intense but dark color wheel of primary and secondary colors. The horns are also of high intensity but isolated and brighter; they’re like handles for throwing the toy in a game.

I start each blog with a color wheel because, for me, it symbolizes the Bauhaus, about which Mies van der Rohe said: “The fact that it was an idea, I think, is the cause of this enormous influence the Bauhaus had on every progressive school around the globe.
Only an idea spreads so far.”

I was five years old when running through the sheets and didn’t know, or care, that the Bauhaus had been closed for five years and many of the famous instructors had fled Germany to America, where they re-opened the school.

Twenty years later, I was immersed in Johannes Itten’s color system, refined by Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Josef Albers, who fortunately organized it into a cohesive method. I have studied, taught and used this system for the past 55 years, and it allows me to organize, innovate, experiment, and be more than happy with the surprising results.

Abstract #1

This nostalgic image is my version of Mrs. Thompson’s backyard. Full of color and white sheets, all waving, and snapping in the wind on a hot, clear summer day.

I cut a couple hundred shapes from museum (mat) board, without a plan or intention, and put them aside. Later, I paint them in many colors, again not knowing how I’ll use them, and put them away in a box.

When I get around to assembling them into a composition, it’s like I’ve found a treasure trove that someone has prepared for me. I move the colored shapes around for a couple of days and finally glue them down and varnish them for protection.

Feathers in the Wind

In my art I try to tell stories about seasons, conditions of age, heat, cold, and, in this case, wind. The feathers are old, nearly blown apart by the wind, left behind, and are somewhere where no one ever sees them. They’re fugitive, and they’ll be gone soon.

Old feathers out there,
Torn apart by the hot wind.
Are past life’s treasure.

I used a number of techniques in this sculpture. I painted a heavy, impasto background, brushing, sponging, splattering, and oxidizing the various elements. As before, I cut, manipulated, painted, and assembled them, in that order. It’s always a challenge and
an adventure.

Hands covered with paint.
Thrilled by color on paper.
I need a bourbon.

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

Thanks for visiting me…

leo

Rhino Color Wheel is $1000.

The abstract is $500.  A similar one, Clouds, is available at the Cut, Bend, Fold, ColorColorColor exhibit at the Grovewood Gallery.
Japanese Maples in the Wind is $2,450 and is at the Cut, Bend, Fold, ColorColorColor exhibit at the Grovewood Gallery.