Anne Bancroft as Louise Nevelson

There are a few films that include Louise Nevelson, one is called Hans Hoffman and was made in 2003, the other is Sculptors at Storm King from 1992, a film that includes Mark DiSuvero, Richard Serra and David Smith. In 2002 Anne Bancroft played the leading role in Edward Albee's play Occupant about Nevelson's life. I can see why Bancroft was cast. There is a wonderful piece on the blog The House Next Door, where writer Dan Callahan remembers Bancroft on stage giving it her all when an audience member stands to leave and Bancroft stops what she is doing to ask the woman to give her a chance, truly Nevelson-esque.
Here is a drawing of Anne Bancroft playing Louise Nevelson.

Louise Nevelson ~ the Colorful Artist who Loved Black

Louise Nevelson, the artist who created this week’s piece for Fifty Two Pieces, has always acted on her vision of the world. In 1975 at a dinner given by the Israel Museum in honor of Louise Nevelson, the sculptor stood up and said, "First of all, I want to thank . . . myself." This incredible persona can be traced back to her early childhood. Born in Russia in 1899, she felt her father had abandoned her when he left for Rockland, Maine in 1903 to start a new life for his family. She stopped talking. Fortunately for us all, Nevelson’s father sent for his family in 1905. At age nine, she saw a statue of Joan of Arc at the Rockland Public Library in Maine and decided to sculpt, telling the local librarian

"I'm going to be a sculptor. I don't want color to help me.”

Following the ribbon of her life, you’ll see her craft her way out of rural Maine where her family had risen from poverty but not free of anti-Semitism. Her father had originally supplmented his income as a timber merchant by scavenging for junk to resell. In 1920, she met and married Charles Nevelson, part of a family who owned a shipping company, and found herself in New York City, an environment where she could take art classes, dance classes. Marriage and motherhood would get into her way though. In 1922, she gave birth to Myron, her only child. Charles’ family disapproved of her desire to be an artist and Charles most certainly wanted a wife who would be part of the social scene. So she started over. In 1931 when the country was well into the Great Depression, Nevelson left Charles, took Myron to Maine to live with her mother and went to Europe.

Her goal was to study Cubism and to reach that goal she moved to Munich to take classes with Hans Hoffman. Her return to New York City was at the same time as Hoffmann’s, who went to America in 1932. She continued to study with him in New York at the Art Students League. As Amy described yesterday, she was an environmental artist. She began to gather wooden objects on the streets of New York. Following in the footsteps of her father, she was making her career from wood and junk. And this is where her passion for black came through. She had assembled her found objects into groupings and then painted them black. So when you see a sculpture such as the one from this week, painted black, it will likely be a Nevelson. They may be black and seem monochromatic but they all contain different objects, creating different worlds. And with black as described by Nevelson there was no need for other color, although there are occasional white and gold works. “black contained all colour... It was an acceptance... Black is the most aristocratic colour of all.”

Even though Nevelson’s work did not sell until she was in her fifties, she kept on creating, living her life fully, creating her art and a presence that eventually became known. “Through years without recognition the only thing that kept me going was that I wouldn’t be appeased.”

A search through Youtube produces this video of an interview of her in her characteristic long head scarf and long eyelashes. During the week we’ll continue to look into her life. It will be a fun ride...

***Update 15:53, LAS (Las Vegas)*** Louise Nevelson sighted in Smith's at the deli counter. She was on her way home from her daily visit to The Wynn.

Louise Nevelson

'I seek truth. What I seek is anything that will work for me. I'll use a lie if it works, and that [becomes] the truth.' Louise Nevelson
As I went through the bags of recycling this morning, moving around plastic bags, milk cartons, tuna cans, beer bottles, all of it, into an organized set of bags, I was reminded of a website I visited yesterday, www.LNPB.org, leave no plastic behind. This organization is responsible for the plastic quilt project, one in which artists were asked to create a square for the quilt made of plastic, and also asked to refrain from buying plastic of any kind for fifteen months. I fell in love instantly with the idea. I don't even know if it's possible, could I find a way to eat all year without buying a thing packaged in plastic? I would have to take my glass jars to the grocery store, buy grains in bulk, have the butcher put my meats in paper, or in glassware, how would they handle me at Fred Meyer? I would probably have to buy some meat from a butcher and keep it in the freezer I have buried in the basement, the one I once hid the television in so John couldn't find it, so we could be free of those talking heads for a few weeks.
I would have to eat a lot more fresh food, isn't that what plastic does, keeps things from losing their freshness because the truth is they should have been eaten a while ago?
Something tells me Louise Nevelson would have joined in on the quilt project, that she would have been part of this Leave No Plastic Behind movement, and I guess we have that in common.

Lee Kelly ~ Sculptor, Musician and Poet

Take a tour around the internet and you will find a few videos of Lee Kelly other than the one from Oregon Public Broadcasting one that I posted the other day. The first one I've linked here shows a group of men making music on one of Lee Kelly's sculptures. At the end of it, you'll see Lee Kelly climbing the sculpture and sitting on its summit. The second video includes many scenes from his sculpture garden in Oregon City as well as him reading a few of his pieces of poetry. The ending shows him scaling the same sculpture as in the first.



Continuing that tour of the internet and you'll be able to read two of his pieces of poetry, here and here.

And for your viewing pleasure here is the venerable Kelly Fountain at SW 6th and Pine here in Portland. There's nothing like the sound of flowing water, especially on city streets.

Sculptural Genius

John asked me this morning what I would choose if I could be any kind of gifted artist, I said maybe a sculptor. This is the video that started the whole conversation, if you have ten minutes to be inspired check it out.

Lee Kelly ~ Arlie, in the Middle

Arlie our featured piece of the week here at Fifty Two Pieces was created in 1978, seventeen years after the 1961 piece introduced later in the week. Comparing those two pieces at the Portland Art Museum will be a great deal easier during the next few months. Arlie sits in the sculpture garden and the 1961 piece is just inside welcoming visitors to the PNCA at 100 show.

The 1961 piece is wildly organic, growing up from smaller sinewy parts. Looking at its flat two-dimensional representation, you can almost see an abstracted Ganesha. The paint Kelly applied to the metal enhances this organic imagery. In person, the piece seems to be breathing. Listen carefully and you can hear it inhaling and exhaling, perhaps a huge sigh to no longer be up on the fourth floor of the Hoffman Wing.




Stylistically, Kelly removed the added color and relied on the variations in the rust of the Corten steel when he created Arlie in 1978. Many think of this work as being influenced by abstract expressionism, think Anthony Caro, and minimalism, perhaps David Smith. For many visiting the sculpture garden, the very tall, over 12 feet, sculpture has an animalistic look. Even without knowing that the name of the sculpture is Arlie, people almost always think animal. Perhaps it's the eye to one side of that large planar form. Face, head and okay, there are those three legs attached. The rust of the Corten steel enhances the animal effect, giving the appearance of a smooth coat of red fur. For an interesting take on Arlie, visit PDL// Portland Art Museum Unauthorized Audio Tour. The link is to Arlie's segment and is something less than a three minute audio. It's great fun from Vital 5 Productions located in that city to the North, Seattle.


Thirty years later, Lee Kelly's work is now mostly in welded stainless steel. Those of us who visit the International Rose Test Garden here in Portland can see one of his early welded stainless creations, Water Sculpture. Created about the same time as Arlie, the stainless reflects the environment around it, picking up the colors and atmosphere of the people viewing it as well as in this case the trees and flowers of the rose garden. Here is another more recent stainless creation, Icarus Revisited, 2005.






Shown at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, their website provides this description.

Icarus Revisited, Kelly’s new body of work, is an investigation of how our culture’s ancient myths have been recast through time, traveling from their place of origin to the new world. In the myth of Icarus, King Menos forbade Icarus, the Son of Daedalus of Crete to fly. He made two wings out of wax, but when he flew too close to the sun, the wax wings melted and he fell into the sea. Lee Kelly supplies a different ending where Icarus flew on to Kittyhawk and invented aeronautics.

This work is an account of attempted flight and the dangers of arrogance. It is a reminder that art is a residue of attempted flight and the result of great imaginings, and how artistic ideas flourish without the restrictions of time and boundaries.

When I am Wise

Mary, my other mother, loves Lee Kelly. She pointed Arlie out to me the first time I saw it, she told me about her aunt Caroline who lived in a house designed inside by Kelly, an undulating Gaudi style house on Greenleaf. She told me Lee Kelly was an extraordinary person, and coming from her I knew it was true. She is extraordinary herself. So today I am going to post a poem by Mary Gray, published in Wild Song in 1998.

When I am Wise

When I am wise in the speech of grass,
I forget the sound of words
and walk into the bottomland
and lie my head on the ground
and listen to what grass tells me
about small places for wind to sing,
about the labor of insects,
about shadows dank with spice,
and the friendliness of weeds.

When I am wise in the dance of grass,
I forget my name and run
into the rippling bottomland
and lean against the silence which flows
out of the crumpled mountains
and rises through slick blades, pods,
wheat stems, and curly shoots,
and is carried by wind for miles
from my outstretched hands.