Wood Sculptures inspired by Louise Nevelson

Our second sculpture project of the class focused on the assemblages of Louise Nevelson.

To source the wood for this project, I scrounged through my neighbors trash. He's a cabinetmaker so I'm very fortunate. If you don't have a local source for interesting little pieces of wood, the art supply places sell packs of them. If you dumpster dive wood, be cautious of painted pieces. Only because this is a kids project, you don't want a lot of lead paint. That's a real problem in our area so I didn't want anything off old houses. For the majority of scrounged wood this is of course not a problem, just be aware.

I cut 12” X 12” pieces of masonite for their background. The students got glue and a big pile of wood pieces and got to arrange them in any way they wanted. They came up with an interesting diversity of work. One piece was very symmetrical.  The two boys treated it like a block project and kept piling on more height than was realistic for a wall piece.  Everyone thought it was an interesting project and put a lot of thought into their pieces.  Due to time constraints, the students got white paint to apply at home and a hanger for when the piece was dry.

In class we focused on these three works:

left:  Royal Tide I and right: White Vertical Water, image source:  The San Fransisco Sentinel

Royal Tide, image source: MyArtbox.org

We discussed what materials she used and what they might represent, as well as why the pieces were painted all one color.

For more information about Louise Nevelson, check out these websites:

The Louise Nevelson Foundation

Jewish Museum of New York Nevelson exhibition.  Family guide for the exhibition.

There aren't any current books about Louise Nevelson but your local library might have these two.

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