Author Archives: Leah

Inspiration

Red Cabinet

I’m a bit of a magpie.

I love picking up odd things that catch my eye, gathering interesting information, looking at art and nature and people and books, filling my house and my brain with all sorts of miscellaneous stuff.

Medieval manuscripts, MAD Magazine, 19th century textbooks, puppets, pulp fiction, anything Alice, botanical specimens, Persian miniatures, Monty Python, scientific illustration, Flemish Renaissance paintings, old lab glass, Victorian scrap, rusty hardware and the art of the insane– when it comes to inspiration, I’m omnivorous!

But it’s after the collecting that the real fun begins.  I love juxtaposing different elements and watching what happens when they get together. It’s like having a lively conversation with ideas & objects and images, full of surprises, twists and turns and curious coincidences.

 

 

Process Goodly Creature

The slides below show stages in the creation of my 2010 painting, Goodly Creature: first concept sketch, prepared canvas, initial collage layers applied and glazed with acrylic, six finished canvas sections, assembly (rear view) and final results.

Although most of my paintings aren’t assembled in this fashion, the collage and painting process is much the same.

Goodly Creature was created for the Things to Come exhibit, September 2010, Bold Hype Gallery, New York, NY. {SOLD}

Studio

Drawing Table
I’ve always loved experimenting, so I’ve explored many different techniques and media including graphite, pen & ink, etching, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, oil, acrylic, digital (Photoshop, Illustrator, & Flash), polymer clay, fiber, found objects and collage. I’ve enjoyed them all and learned much from each, and I still have a restless urge to try new techniques. But most of my gallery work these days is a combination of collage and acrylic. Above is a picture of my drawing table set-up. You can see my palette, which I keep in an old tin that can be covered to slow drying, and a few jars of pre-mixed colors of Golden Fluid Acrylic, my favorite paint ever. You can also see the teeny-tiny brushes I love, along with some bigger ones I use mainly for backgrounds and glazes. Just visible at the lower left is the edge of a printed collage piece, glazed with translucent color in preparation for painting.
My studio is stuffed with old books and papers that I’ve found mainly at our local flea market. I especially love 19th-century textbooks and instruction manuals, which can often be had for a dollar or two. I scan texts and sometimes maps and illustrations from these sources, them print them archivally to use as a collage base for my paintings. You can see the way I incorporate these elements in Process.

Apologies! My contact form plugin has been having some problems lately. I’m working on a fix, but if the form below doesn’t work for you, please email me directly at curiouser {at} mindspring {dot} com

I'd love to hear from you! You can also stay in touch using the buttons below. Thank you! ~ Leah

Client List A Partial List of Leah's Clients

Book Publishers

Penguin NZ
HarperCollins
Macmillan
Hyperion
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Algonquin Books
Little, Brown
Random House
Avon Books
Hazard Press
Tarn Publishing
Gnomon Press
Viking Junior Books
Henry Holt
David R. Godine
McGraw-Hill
Sadlier
Candlewick

Periodical Publishers

New York Times
Utne Reader
Games
Santa Fe Reporter
Urbanite
Cricket
Spider
Ladybug
Cicada
Cobblestone
Horticulture
Eating Well
Woman’s Day
Weekly Reader
Delta Sky
Shuttle Sheet
Mountain Bike

Other Clients

Sunrise Greetings
C.R.Gibson Greetings
Puzzability
Howard, Merrell
West, Vaughn
Underground Advertising
Market Force
Luquine George Andrews
Silver Editions
Hughes Design
Duke University
NCSU Libraries
Durham Arts Council
Quail Ridge Books (mural)
Fred Olds Elementary (mural)
Sawtooth Center (workshop)

Curiouser?

“Curiouser & Curiouser!” That’s what’s painted on my studio door, and I try to live by those words every day.  Yes, the grammar is a bit peculiar, but if it’s good enough for Alice, it’s certainly good enough for me.

Alice

I’ll admit to being a wee bit obsessed with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. I first encountered the books when I was about six years old, and Alice has remained a source of fascination and delight ever since.

I cherish the many editions of Carroll’s books that I’ve collected or been given over the years, most recently this exquisite facsimile edition of Carroll’s original manuscript, Alice’s Adventures Underground. (Many thanks to Anthony Holcroft!)

Alice Underground

But Alice isn’t the only reason I call my work Curious Art. The multiple meanings of the word “curious” continue to intrigue and inspire me:

 

Specimen: Darwin Acrylic painting on text collage on canvas, 6"x6"

Acrylic painting, Darwin, Charles Darwin, butterfly wings, collage, text,

Yet another piece based on old scientific texts. This one came from an entry in an encyclopedia published in Darwin’s lifetime. I scanned it & printed it so as not to destroy the original. The print was collaged to canvas, then painted over with acrylics.

(By the way, while the entry acknowledged some controversy over his theories, it acclaimed him as an eminent naturalist who had revolutionized scientific thought, & lamented that he was “still misunderstood.” This was in 1872!)

Reposted from Curious Art Blog

Original SOLD~ prints are available in my Etsy shop.