Sculpture in Wood and Bronze

Multi Media Paintings

For The Love of ART

This past year has brought yet more recognition to local Guemes Island artist, Leo. E. Osborne.

His work in bronze, RAINFOREST DREAM received The People’s Choice Award at the Olympia Percival Plinth Project in 2014 and now in 2015 his work ILLUMINATED ONE also won the People’s Choice Award and each work is now placed in a permanent location in the City of Olympia.

“Olympia has been good to me says Leo”.  In the past his work was chosen twice by jury to be used as the piece for the Governor’s Art & Heritage Award.  The MONA was recipient of one of those and because his work was chosen for two consecutive years, there was an art law put into the jurying process stating that an artist who was selected for this honor could not apply again for 5 years.  Leo says, “it seemed so weird and crazy to have an ‘art law’ written because of me, very funny”.

Other events of note for Osborne include, having 2 works purchased for the Art on the Avenue exhibition in Wenatchee, one work purchased by the City of Puyallup for their Public Park and he currently has a piece on display in the City of Des Moines at their Art on Poverty Bay exhibition. 

Leo has also been juried into the prestigious worldwide exhibition of 100 bird artists at the Woodson Art Museum’s BIRDS IN ART EXHBITION in Wausau, Wisconsin with his wooden original a raven titled REMORSE.  His work GREAT ESCAPE, a sea turtle in burl wood is juried into the Artists For Conservation Annual Exhibition in Vancouver, BC.  His work ENTWINED a hummingbird on a vine is included in the WESTERN VISIONS Annual Exhibition at the National Wildlife Art Museum in Jackson, Wyoming where they installed his 13 foot monument MAGINATION  last year.  ENTWINED is also being exhibited this fall in the Society of Animal Artists Annual Exhibit of whom Leo is one of 12 Signature Master Artists, showing at the Roger Tory Peterson Foundation in New York.

“Remaining busy as a bee, says Osborne”, his latest large bronze RIDING THE THERMALS, an 8 foot bronze bird in flight is soon to be installed in Philadelphia.  He says that he is currently working on a book that he has written and is busy doing some 20, 12x12 inch painted on silk illustrations to accompany this art book publication to be completed this year.  

 SPIRALING RELEASE

From densities of earth

releasing at the core,

a whirling dervish,

materializing bird

on the wing

spirals from its center,

outward bound

shimmering in

it’s centrifugal spin

RIDING  THE  THERMALS 

Catching the drift
of rising wind
off the cliff face
 
Spiraling aloft, then….
dipping a feather
and swooping
into the current
the downward arch
 
Spinning and then….
catching the edge
sweeping aloft
once again
riding the thermals

WITH ARMS WIDE OPEN

How do I greet you?
The One who is like me…

The truth that we are One…
For in you I see only me

We are the shadow
of each other’s reality

And with arms wide open it must be
that I greet you as you greet me

Leo E. Osborne – Biography

Born in 1947, Leo recalls his preschool years living in Marshfield, Massachusetts at his grandmother’s farm, where chickens, ducks and a goat named Mary, after his grandmother, were the run of the day. He spent endless hours climbing trees, flying kites and walking along stonewalls where in summer the tiger lilies grew well over his head. He began schooling in Pembroke, Massachusetts where his parents, Walter and Judith took up residence on the shores of Big Sandy Pond. This brought Leo years of woodland adventures training wild Mallard ducks to feed from his hand and to follow him into the house with their ducklings. He still climbed trees, but with a more dangerous spirit about him and he is one of the fortunate souls who can remember, “swinging from birches.” With the neighborhood boys he fished daily in the posted ” no fishing” pond and learned to smoke stolen cigarettes that were kept in a hollow stump in the forest. It was in those forest settings that he first felt the world of spirit…the old souls that were present in those sacred places. He was obviously a constant source of interest for his parents.

Thus began Leo’s fascination with the “wild” side of life and the world of nature and spirit. He also began drawing what he felt. During high school years, he won a scholarship from the Art Instruction School of Minneapolis and entered a home schooling course. This was furthered when he was trained at New England School of Art in Boston. He recalls wonderful instructors who were all painters from the Gloucester School of Painting and taught Leo about the “finer” side of art even though he was taking a course in commercial illustration. Returning home each day from the city, he would join with his neighbor David Carroll and wife Laurette. David had taken the position of the high school art teacher. Leo feels that he could not have experienced a better mentor than David with whom he spent hours drawing, listening to public radio, writing poetry, playing wiffle ball and drinking Guinness Stout. As a teenager and budding young artist, these were powerful moments in time.

Early showings of Osborne’s paintings were seen around Cape Cod, where he spent many summers working and surfing. He recalls that around 1968 he was the guiding force behind an art event in Pembroke that they called the Pauper’s Art Festival. Moving to the Maine Coast in 1970, he “dropped out” in order to live in the woods, 2 miles from pavement. In the years to come he worked a short stint at Sears, actually selling auto parts {unbelievable} and later to work in the fish industry and then as a shepherd of 300 sheep and to put pin stripping on autos. He began painting signs to make money and then to carve them in 1974 when his daughter Rachel was born. Thus began the evolution into his bird carving period where he showed throughout North America and won many of his numerous and prestigious awards. In 1990 he moved to the beautiful Pacific Northwest and furthered his interest in bronze sculpture and has since produced many works. He is found often at the foundry overseeing new pieces and working with his favorite patineur and friend Tim Norman.

In 2002, Leo and Jane Lane moved into a new location on Guemes Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Captivated by the love and joyful spirit of this island, they have together co-created MILKWOOD STUDIO & HOME GALLERY. This cottage by the sea is now referred to as “a living museum”. The studio, sculpture gardens, home and guest cottage are fused together as one entity. There is no separation says Leo, as this spiritually creative journey of his and Jane’s encompasses all aspects of being in the moment.

Leo continues to investigate many mediums and potentialities in art, as with his paintings, which he refers to as “acrylusion”, the fusion of acrylic paint over gold leaf gilded panels. He refuses to get locked into a niche and play the same tune over and over. He has always been a sort of rebel. His philosophy is that ART transcends all borders and boundaries. Each creation of our hands comes from the heart and mind and reflects the creative spirit and energy of the Universal Maker. Therefore, we must honor it as sacred. As caretakers of this planet, we must in all hospitality and with consciousness leave this life having given back something of beauty. We must be led by spirit and like so many artists prior, we are storytellers of our time. Painting and sculpture are rhythm, musical form, mood, feeling, the jazz and the energy within. Release that from wood or with paint and the story unfolds.

The artist is the instrument for release. The mind moves and the tool walks on its own. Become one with the tool, one with the medium, blend, move together, feel the music and feel life.

Where will we find Leo and his work heading? One cannot be certain, for he knows not where spirit will lead him. He remains open for all possibilities to become present in his life and work. In doing so, Leo E. Osborne keeps the dream alive, allows for the mystery to unfold, creating mystology and striving for excellence.

Leo Osborne can claim many honors for his art, among them numerous Awards Of Excellence from the Society Of Animal Artists and the National Sculpture Society.

Leo has the rare ability to transform quiet moments in a wild world (nature) to a wonderfully unique, portrait in bronze. He’s known nationally for his marvelous, original, wood sculpture burls as well as his everlasting editions in bronze.

"In 2013 I had RAINFOREST DREAM, a blue/gold macaw on a pedestal chosen to be in the City of Olympia’s, Percival Plinth Outdoor Sculpture Project. The piece was on display for a year and it was the winner of The People’s Choice Award and was purchased by the City of Olympia to adorn the Capital City of Washington State forever!
 
This year I was pleased to have accepted into this same exhibition the bronze ILLUMINATED ONE, a cormorant on a pedestal with barnacles sculpted into it. I am totally pleased to say that once again the public voted my piece as THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE and it too will now remain in the City of Olympia." -Leo Osborne

A CHARLESTON ROMANCE
 
It began for me, Leo E. Osborne in 1988 when living in Maine, I made the commitment to go to South Carolina in February for my first Southeastern Wildlife Art Exposition.
 
My work was shipped prior to my flying to Charleston. When I got there the morning of the show’s opening night, no one knew where my work had been stored! I was hanging around the Hibernian Hall, where the sculptors were to exhibit and I met a tall blond lovely woman named Arla Holroyd who came up to me and asked if I knew a painter named Nolan and I told her I did. She had a print to give to him, as she had owned a bed and breakfast in Mount Pleasant which she now used to give rooms to artists who were coming for the SEWE event weekend. It was the year before that Nolan had stayed with her. I told her I would point him out when I saw him and I told her what I was doing at the moment, waiting to have someone find my work in storage. She could not believe that no one knew where my work was and she took it upon herself to find out! Within two hours she had made the right calls and sure enough the right person found my work. The whole thing was upsetting of course as the show was about to go on! I got my work hung as wall sculptures, for they were my unique wall sculptures that looked like rocks with carved birds on them and shadows crossing the stone surfaces. They were in place not five minutes before the doors opened for the night’s preview. Thank You Arla!!!!
 
The weekend was great and my wall sculptures were a hit and stood out among the works on display, for there was nothing else like them.
 
I returned the following year, and so in 1990 received the First Place Purchase Award and the Third Place in Decorative Wood Sculpture. In 1992 I was to receive the First Place in Interpretive Sculpture.
 
Then in 1994, a longtime friend who had art gallery experience with my work in Maine where we had met, gave me a call. She was a captain of her own sailing vessel and sailed the Maine waters in the summer and on to the Caribbean waters in the winter. She had made a decision to return to Charleston, her original home and there began her first art gallery at Yellow Dog Art Gallery in partnership with another woman. Soon Candace Martin opened her own gallery as The Martin Gallery on Queen Street. Candace had called to ask if I would show my work with her, of which I agreed immediately.
 
Thus began my longtime connection and love affair with Charleston, South Carolina. I returned each year for the SEWE and to show work and have special openings at Martin Gallery. This went on for a number of years until I decided to stop doing the Wildlife Festival and concentrated on doing special exhibits with the gallery.
 
Since then it has been a wonderfully remarkable story. I love Charleston, C~City as I affectionately call it and for years stayed with my good friend and dear soul Arla in Mount Pleasant. The stories that I could tell around our relationship are many and her beautiful mind of knowledge as a public teacher gave me much to know about the history and the people of this magnificent place and city.
 
As years went on the Martin Gallery took possession of one of the finest old buildings of the city, The People’s Building and it is there that the gallery now houses the work of many fine artists. My works in wood sculpture, bronze limited editions, and unique paintings are on continual display and I am very grateful to not only love Charleston, but to see that Charleston loves me and my work! We have had an ongoing fine and delightful time and relationship.
 
This brings me to February 2015 when once again I will personally be in Charleston and at the wonderful Martin Gallery for a very special show. We are working in conjunction with The South Carolina Aquarium and their magnificent Turtle Hospital to create a Gala for The Turtles. I am working now on a number of original wooden sculptures and paintings that will be the focus of this exhibition. A percentage of proceeds from sales will be donated to the Aquarium for the new turtle hospital expansion.
 
This exhibition will be preceded by my presence on January 30th at Brookgreen Gardens, Pawley’s Beach where they will be opening the touring museum exhibition ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT. This show was created in part from a phone conversation of mine with curator David Wagner, twenty years after we had shown works representing the horrific events of the Valdez Oil spill and now we were in the clutches of the Gulf Oil Spill. This show was organized by David and has now toured numerous museums across the United States. This opening at Brookgreen Gardens will be followed the next day by a lecture that I will present about the dynamics of this exhibition.
 
All of this is due to the many years of support that I have been gifted with by the people of the Low Country. This week of giving back to the region is an honor for me and it makes me glad that now so many years later in my career as a visual artist, I can have this opportunity to show my appreciation. The interchange that I have had through my art with the folks who have so loved and supported it, has caused me to find in my heart a wonderful love of this place of belonging.