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By Ted McIrvine, Hendersonville Times-News
July 24, 2005
Creating Sculpture in Paper
South Dakota, Southern California and Southern Appalachia have little
in common except for the five letters s-o-u-t-h. But the first two
locations figured importantly in the artistic development of Leo
Monahan, America's foremost paper sculpture illustrator, and the
stimulus provided by our region will shape his future output.
Monahan was born in Lead, South Dakota. HBO devotees know that
Lead (which is pronounced "leed" and means an outcropping of ore)
is just a ten-minute gallop from Deadwood. In 1874, General George
Custer's expedition arrived and two cultures collided. The new
arrivals, with a philosophy of "Manifest Destiny," discovered gold and
soon were fighting each other over the titles to gold mining claims.
The Sioux felt they too had claims, albeit of a different nature. Their
nomadic culture (appropriate in a region with less than 20 inches of
annual rainfall) had no concept of land ownership. Cutting into the
face of the Black Hills was like cutting into your mother's breast.
Monahan's grandfather and father were both miners, and Monahan
might have followed in their footsteps had he not served in the
Japanese occupation forces during the Korean War. Using his GI Bill,
he then studied art at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Walt
Disney had taken an interest in the school, and when Monahan
received a Disney Scholarship, a long involvement with the Disney
enterprises began. The Chouinard Art Institute merged with the Los
Angeles Conservatory of Music in 1961 to become the California
Institute of the Arts ("CalArts") on a splendid campus in Valencia, built
with funds from the estate of Walt Disney.
Monahan was involved with Chouinard, Disney and/or CalArts for 50
years before moving to North Carolina. He taught color, served as a
Disney contractor, and had access to the model shops and the
specialized techniques used for set construction for Disney
amusement parks. Fresh out of school with a few other designers
and photographers, he started a business that created cover art for
over 1,200 records. Selling that business, he did freelance illustration
for 10 years, then began an advertising agency.
He began paper sculpture in 1960. By the late 1970s, paper sculpture
had taken over his life. Since 1987, he has done nothing but paper
sculpture, both as an illustrator and as a fine artist. Generally using
Strathmore 2-ply and 3-ply kid finish papers (and sometimes using
watercolor paper or handmade papers), he tears and cuts the paper
into three-dimensional sculptures to which he applies color with an
arsenal of techniques.
His fine art has primarily been topically based upon his childhood in
the Black Hills and especially on symbols arising from the Sioux or
from nature. Masks, feathers, pottery, boats and birds appear
frequently. Now that he has relocated to Barnardsville, his art is
influenced by his new surroundings. He is currently working on
sculptures inspired by the autumn forest floor in this region. Patterns
representing fallen leaves but with distorted scale will be prominent.
He is represented locally by the Silver Fox Gallery on Main Street in
Hendersonville, who featured his work through June 30 with great
sales success. "And when the end of June came, they wouldn't give
me back the unsold pieces. They just asked me to deliver some
more!" says Monahan, pleased to be in his new home and with a new
gallery connection.
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