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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Calder inspired Pipe Cleaner Sculptures

We've moved to sculpture in our coop art class.  It's always my favorite part since that's my background.  We looked at the sculptures of Alexander Calder, primarily the stabiles.

I provided three slides of very different works in class as samples.

Flamingo, image source:  Wikipedia

Fish mobile, image source:  Hirshhorn Museum

57th Stabile, image source:  Pace Gallery

The materials the students were provided were florists foam, pipe cleaners, and colored paper.  We talked about each of these sculptures and then focused on what style of working that would translate to with the materials on hand.  So the Flamingo has a lot of mass on one side with sections that reach out and touch the ground (foam with pipe cleaners dominating one side).  The Fish doesn't even have a base and could inspire other hanging work (all pipe cleaners and colored paper). The 57th stabile has a prominent base with elements almost floating above it (using all the materials provided).

The students were provided regular table knives for carving their florist foam if they wanted.  Scissors were provided for cutting the pipe cleaners as well as colored paper.  The colored paper was provided for adding sections of mass to the pipe cleaners.  If you cut out two mirror image pieces, and glue them together with the pipe cleaner in the middle, it expands the possibilities.

The students had fun with this project and came up with a great diversity of sculptural forms.

For more information on Alexander Calder and his stabiles check out these sources:

Artsology, L'Homme Sculpture

The Calder Foundation

National Gallery of Art, Vertical Constellation with Bomb virtual tour or kids publication, Inside Scoop

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