Milkwood Studio & Leo E. Osborne 2023

• MILKWOOD STUDIO & LEO E. OSBORNE 2023

  Do not text me….
  I still have a land line, no I-Phone, I barely know how to use this computer, but it does make a good writing tool, though I still miss the wonderful sound of keys typing on a non-electric typewriter.
  Through it all, I have kept busy in 2023. I did 10 new paintings that were shown and sold at a September Show in which I was featured and to my own surprise I have completed a new large wood carving. It will soon be photographed and it will be shown on this website, PALACE OF THE GOLDEN PLOVER is the title, you can watch for it to see what it is. Ya, there is a plover in it!
  I continue to send my work to the East Coast of the US though shipping has drastically increased as well as the cost of bronze. So, my prices had to increase to keep up with that change.
  I had work in a number of fine exhibitions, though I did not travel to any of them. I am not flying and not going to large gatherings. I have not had covid and that is partly why I stay put on this little island in the Salish Sea of the great Pacific Northwest, being reclusive. Yup, the old reclusive artist, just doin’ his thing and watching the world go by, Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, hey!
  I continue to work my gardens and look forward to springtime to do its thing.
  Reviewing my last years MYSTERIES UNFOLDING AT MILKWOOD, where I had written about the horror of not being able to get from GOLDEN PAINTS the same type of sealer that I had used prior to covid as they could no longer get those raw materials. This sealer was the element needed to oxidize my composite gold leaf paintings. After many calls during months of time, and talking with many folks at GOLDEN, they somewhere found about 2 gallons of the old material and kindly sent that to me. So, I should have enough to last the rest of the time that I hope to be painting and I can continue to produce the style of work that I have become noted for, the oxidized paintings. I am truly grateful to GOLDEN in reconfirming to me that there are still good people out there in the world.
  My quest, as always, remains: To share and to bring beauty into the world, for lifting the spirits of people…

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• And…another year passes.

  And…another year passes. I am turning 75 and don’t realize it! Sometimes I really think I am much younger. This can be great for the mind, but it can cause problems when I overdo things, like wood carving, digging in my gardens, carrying too much bronze sculpture around = doctor, physical therapy, message, heat pads, ice, acupuncture!!!!

  It’s a pain in the arse and other places too! But, I still work at my art. Something like 20 new paintings came out of me and I became fascinated with using ferns as forms for trees in my paintings on gold leaf. This unique technique of mine has been an evolution for 23 years. I have used composition gold leaf and oxidizing it with coats of polymer varnish, which turns some of the gold shades of green. The acrylic has been a product of Golden Paints. However, due to the friggin’ covid 19, the company has not been able to get its raw ingredients to make this UV protective coating. They still are not able to produce the product….so….I will now be forced to begin another process for my painting style.

  Adjusting, reinventing, exploring once again into my life as an artist. This year too saw a 20% increase in the cost of producing limited edition bronzes sculptures. This is also causing a need to reconsider what I will cast in bronze. The economy of this world is in the toilet and it appears that it may go down the drain soon, as it is getting worse. There is a great need to be grateful, to bring beauty into the world through art, so I am still under my mandate to create.

  I created a new bronze using a pair of birds as subjects and this was inspired by a flock of Eurasian Doves visiting our island neighborhood. With my constant urging of the planet towards peace, I took the words from an old protest sang by Pete Seeger and sculpted the piece, RING THE BELL OF FREEDOM, from the song, “If I Had A Hammer”. I will be submitting this sculpture into several juried exhibitions this year coming. There are already two exhibitions scheduled for the coming year and I shall be working on new works for them soon, as ideas are now forming for that to happen.

  So, we shall see what appears from my studio in the weeks and months ahead and I know it will be a surprise to not only my collectors, but also to myself.

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• MILKWOOD STUDIO & LEO E. OSBORNE 2021-2022

  As we near the winter solstice and turning of the sun to give us more daily light, I feel grateful to be alive and living peacefully with my wife Jane Lane, love of my life, on a small island in the great Pacific Northwest, and still doing my work.

  2021 has been a great year for me, in having been included in several museum exhibitions and shows at the galleries that represent me. I will continue to submit work to international shows as I have two new bronze editions about to come out at the turning of the year. My work shall be again included in the Environmental Impact II Exhibition tour which begins in February2022 at the Bateman Centre of art in Victoria, BC. I can only hope that the border can be crossed at the time of the opening at the centre, which as the raven flies is only a few miles across the waters of the Salish Sea, but governmental regulations with the Covid Pandemic means that borders may yet again close and the inability to be in groups may not allow for a proper opening of this fantastical exhibition of international importance.

  There are two shows scheduled for my paintings in January and in October of 2022. This year, my 74th, saw me complete another wooden burl original sculpture, this time with snails as the subject. The Fibonacci Spiral, The Golden Ration has influenced my thinking in that dimension and the love of snails, AMOUR D’ESCARGOT is the completion of this idea. My new paintings have been most stimulating to create for they embrace yet again the 20-year evolution of my discovered technique of oxidation with leaf and the use of acrylic paints ;and mediums. This group of works are in the theme of The Mystical Light of the Pacific Northwest. I am very excited to see the public response to this re-inventing of myself and this medium of choice.

  

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• HOW DO I KEEP SANE IN THIS WORLD OF PANDEMIC FRIGHT AND DISASTER?

  As the seasons change, as another year appears, may we see a change in all of us to protect and love our planet and ALL life upon it.I am grateful for the many years that my work has toured in The Environmental Impact Exhibition traveling around the United States and Canada. It was this connection to Stanford University that I became an artist being shared on the attached Stanford University Blog MAHB.

   

  How Do I keep Sane in This World of Pandemic Fright and Disaster?
  | MAHB (stanford.edu)

   

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• TOGETHER AS A PLANET

  

   

  So….here we are….together, as a planet

  Everyone has to deal with it, we have been directed to stay home, be still, think about what we have done to the planet and animals that we share it with and let us not forget the people, black, red, brown, yellow, white, blue/purple, copper, bronze, pink any green ones out there?

  I have named and associated this virus as the CORVID #9#9#9 Virus…..picking up the theme from Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds, black carrion and The Beatles White album, number 9 number 9, number 9…….black & white together….hmmmm, seems to be a theme there too!

  So, here we are in this together and with the question of when will it change? Will it? Ever? We don’t know and therefore we must wear masks, so we can’t tell who each other is, but we call that being safe. Trying to keep this virus under cover, under wrap, under world, but it is right under our noses and we are in it’s presence, this pandemic.

  But ya know what…some days I think we deserve it…we have done so much wrong, we continue to support government leaders to warring, to not heeding the intelligence of scientists and intellectual people to STOP this damn polluting of the Earth and the Atmosphere. How long before we have a Universal Revolt against these criminals, who are not intelligent, but as a great writer of our time Wendell Berry calls the brains of the corporate world, not intelligent minds, simply clever ones. Their cleverness is used for their gain and profits of the Capitalist System that has now totally overturned Democracy.

  So, let’s hear it for THE BLACK BIRDS, they will await the time for devouring the remains of humans, an avian feast-a banquet for the rulers of the sky, for the intelligence of the birds, who are truly more intelligent than humans..I mean look at the facts…look at what we have created with our minds..and now we are seeing the results of our foolishness.

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• John Doyle Gallery

  In 1988 I went to Charleston, South Carolina for my first time at the Southeastern Wildlife Expo. I attended for several years after and at one show was awarded Best In Show as well as the honor of having my work selected for their Purchase Awards.
  In 1994 Candace Martin, a friend of mine from Maine opened her Martin Gallery and I remained with Martin Gallery for 20 some years until it recently closed.
  NOW, in 2020 I am thrilled to announce that my work continues to be represented in Charleston, South Carolina at The JOHN C. DOYLE GALLERY on 125 Church Street in the fabulous historical French Quarter of the City.

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• My 1970 Winter and the L. L. Bean Story

  

  By 1982 I had established myself as a bird carver living on the Maine Mid Coast in the Rockland area, and as years went on I won such notoriety as Best In World Interpretive Bird Carving with the Ward Foundation in Maryland and had begun to show work at various museums.

  During that year of 1982 I also had a long display of my bird carving work at the “Old” L. L. Bean Store at the second level of the old wooden staircase, behind a glass window display area.

  However, this story occurred in the wild and fierce winter of 1970, one of the biggest snow years in Maine’s recorded weather history.

  My wife and I were in our early twenties and one year prior had built a geodesic dome two and one half miles into the woods on a closed road, deep in the interiors of Warren, Maine. We had parents still alive in the Boston area and we would hitch hike there every six weeks or so to visit. It was then, and still is, about a four hour drive and to hitch hike it could take many hours of road standing and thumbs out! It amazed us though that at times we made the trip with various drivers in 4.5 hours, that was a treat!

  On one of these visits we headed back to Maine and had done pretty well until it started to snow. And it snowed BIG and it was a severe Nor’easter blowing hard into our faces as we headed north. We got dropped off at Freeport by a driver and we knew that L. L. Bean would be opened all night and we made our way there to get warmed and have a cup of coffee before heading back to the highway and in hopes of someone being on the road at this time of night, which was in the later hours of the evening, like maybe 9-10 pm to venture a guess.

  At the store, we realized that we had a very intense night ahead of us and we were cold….freezing cold!!! So, not having any money, we were just a couple of long haired hippies, living off the land, I took it upon myself to help myself to two sets of mittens, scarves and hats, placing them into my backpack…then we left the store!

  We did get picked up by a generous man driving a big freight truck. It was slow going, but he was able to take us to the road that led into the land that we owned and where our dome was located. We still had that 2.5 mile walk into our dome and it was snowing and had accumulated to about 2 feet by the time we headed into the woods. There was also the intense winds that were whirling snow upon us and blinding us so that we could barely see and it was by now after midnight. It was rather scary!

  We had gotten just over half way there when my wife so dear, just fell into a snow bank and said she just had to sleep for a bit. I knew we could not survive that, so I half carried her staggering the next hour which it took us to walk what should have been no more than 15 minutes to our shelter. Of course it was super cold in the dome where no wood fire had been for several days. I managed to get a fire going and we hunkered down into quilt after quilt and made it through the night, at home, in our dome, safe and sound. That spring, we saw where dear had eaten bark off trees some 20 feet up, that is how much snow we got in that winter of 1970!

  Yes, I did steal those garments from L. L. Bean, but doing so might have saved our lives that night. So, finally, now, in 2019 I am personally thanking L. L. Bean for that gift, on that night so fierce!

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• Bellingham Alive Magazine – Finding Peace Amidst the Chaos

  
  Leo F. Osborne is no stranger to the wild side of life. Having grown up in the woodlands of coastal Massachusetts, the multi-award-winning artist and writer says nature plays an influential role in his life and frequently shapes his art.
  “1 was always in love with wildlife, even as a child,” says Osborne.
  This love of nature brought Osborne to the Pacific Northwest during the ‘90s, when he first visited Guemes Island. “I had this feeling like I was coming home. It just appealed to me greatly. I had already fallen in love…” For the past two decades, he and his wife, Jane Lane, have made their place on the island, reveling in the natural beauty and wildlife that surrounds them.

  CREATING AN IMPACT
  Osborne, 71, devotes his life to creating art, no matter the medium.
  A quick trip to his website unveils an impressive resume with honors and awards dating back to 1981. Though he originally began as a painter, Osborne taught himself how to sculpt, wanting an additional method for bringing his artistic visions to life.
  To say the least, his artistic range is dynamic. His online gallery displays an array of wood and metal sculptures, often depicting wildlife in its natural state. His paintings make use of vivid colors and evocative imagery, highlighting the mystical elements of our environment.
  Osborne has received much acclaim for his sculpting in particular, having won Best Interpretive Bird Carver in the World at The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art’s World Bird Carving Competition in 1989.
  “I love working with raw, chaotic pieces of wood,” he says. “Through the chaos, I somehow have found this Zen point that I can reach into and collaborate with.” In this state of solace, Osborne creates artwork that reflects the profound inner dialogues he has with each piece.
  At the time of the Valdez Oil Spill in 1989, for example, he had been working on a compelling maple burlwood sculpture of three shorebirds called “Still Not Listening.” In response to the environmental disaster, Osborne decided to have one bird stuck on its back with a wing upstretched, trying to free itself from the merciless black goo. “Finding these little links in nature that I can then interpret and bring into the human mindset becomes a very powerful lesson for me,” Osborne says.
  The same sculpture is now featured in a traveling national museum exhibition, “Environmental Impact,” for the second time.

  LOOKING AHEAD
  Despite his experience, Osborne actively reinvents his art, choosing to leave behind certain aspects of his work in pursuit of others. “I liken myself to being an explorer,” he says. “I’m an explorer within the world of art.”
  With tenacious energy and a limitless supply of wonder, Osborne continues to explore the world through his art, never knowing where it will take him next. In a recent partnership with Village Books, he is working to publish his first written and illustrated book, “The Cat and the Coracle.” It’s expected to hit shelves this fall.

  Ray Garcia
  BellinghamAlive.com
  

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