Nol Putnam 

Original Architectural Drawings

Nol Putnam

various sizes

Golden Tresses

Nol Putnam

iron, gold leaf
24” x 7” x 8”

Holding Mercury: 2016-2020

Darien Reece

Silver Hands

Darien Reece

Casein, metallic marker, birch panel
24” x 18”

I have had minimal formal education in smithing. When I started there were few schools to attend. But I know how to learn on my own. By the 1980’s various craft schools had started classes, and I have taught in many of them. By 2000, I was tired of creating for others and began to explore my own images. The White Oak Forge is a working smithy these last 45 years; it is dirty and fascinating. It is the current iteration of a craft that stretches back 10,000 years. What you see in my forge and on my grounds is almost where I am.

All work featured in this exhibition are created with various kinds of iron, one utilizes gold leaf paint, and all indoor pieces are finished with two coats of hard wax for durability. As these are all indoor pieces, the bottoms are finished with felt to prevent scratching any surface they rest upon.

Nol is joined in his studio this year by Darien Reece:

I am an artist working in the outsider / visionary tradition. Feminine, archetypal images come to me as visions from my dreams and myths from my subconscious. Magic lives in these dark, juicy, liminal places.

I am a life-long beachcomber, forest-forager, city sidewalk-culler and incorporate found objects in my sculpture. Casein is the paint I prefer, an ancient paint composed of earth and mineral pigments using milk solids/ casein as the binder – a modern form is called “milk paint”. Furniture and wooden domestic architecture painted with casein has lasted for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

I paint on birch panels whenever possible, incorporating local beeswax, 23 ct gold leaf and metallic markers when something in a painting wants to be illuminated.

Nol Putnam participated in the July Virtual Art Exhibitions. Click here to watch the recording of the live Meet-the-Artist event.