Once every two weeks for a year, JSC Professor of Fine Arts Ken Leslie drove to the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier, climbed the 201 steps to the narrow balustrade at Ceres’ toes, and completed a sketch on one page of a curiously folded, triangular booklet. Then, after descending into the barrel-shaped room that supports the golden dome, he would paint. Each day, he turned to a different page, and a different direction to face.
Leslie has created a circular panorama of the view surrounding the Statehouse, displaying the passage of the seasons among the progression of the pages. That little book folds open to a wide ring of Montpelier painted together in an unending cycle.
The idea of doing that panorama of the Statehouse view occurred spontaneously, during an exhibition of his art in the Governor’s Gallery. The gallery is managed by David Schütz, the State Curator, and while discussing ideas, Leslie suggested making a panorama of the Statehouse view. His idea was instantly agreed upon.
Leslie spent his first trip up to the dome working out the plan for the painting. “I had to take a panorama of photos, map it all out, figure out where I would be facing,” he said. “I could start anywhere, so where do I want to be facing in June, and where do I want to be facing in December.” At one point, Leslie noticed a line of school buses, and it occurred to him to do that scene in late August, just as school was starting, so he could paint in the buses. Then, next to the buses was the wooded hill that sits behind the Statehouse, which would look beautiful as the leaves turned and winter approached. When spring approached, he would be looking down on the newly planted flowerbeds that mark the wide path up the steps from State Street. And so his timetable was mapped out.Leslie started painting on July 18, 2011. He travelled to the Statehouse 27 times, usually on a Monday, unless the building was closed for a holiday. He sketched the scenes standing on the balustrade, and then painted the colors inside the drum of the dome, looking out of the windows.He finished the on-location painting on July 16, 2012, but he still has many details to add. “I have a lot of finish work to do on this still,” he said. “And then I’m going to turn it into an edition, printed out so that it’s available, probably as a fundraiser for the Statehouse art projects, something like that.”
According to Leslie, the most difficult part of the process was finding a parking space. “The problem is the maximum for any meter anywhere near the Statehouse is two hours, and I always needed just a little bit more than two hours,” he said. “But I did find—and I’m never going to tell you where they are—some few parking areas that are within six blocks of the Statehouse.”
For over 20 years, Leslie has been enamored with creating circular paintings. The fascination began after he was commissioned to create a design for a stained glass window.
“It occurred to me how different the rules were when you worked on a circle [rather] than on a rectangle,” he said. “With rectangular pieces, generally the bottom always seems closer to you than the top, and there’s also a sense of gravity. When you’re working on a circle, that changes completely. The center becomes the gravitational pull. All the rules of composition change.”
Once Leslie discovered the opportunity for exploration within this new set of rules, he was hooked. “It became extremely interesting to escape 2000 years of the history of painting,” he said.
He continued to experiment with circular paintings, until one day he decided he wasn’t interested in completing the center of one. So he cut it out, and the donut accordion book was invented. “And then, having done that once, I had to do it again and again and again, and I’m still doing it,” he said.
Most of the other donut accordions Leslie has made are painted within a 24-hour period, with one section per hour. For these paintings Leslie is drawn north, to arctic regions where the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon. He has painted 24-hour cycles in Norway, Finland, Iceland, Alaska and Canada. In the spring, he is planning to take a sabbatical to complete another cycle, this time in Greenland.
Leslie attributes the inspiration for his work to his mathematical state of mind. “I always remember in studying math, you always have to check your answer,” he said. “You always kind of circle back and see if you can get to the same place another way, and that kind of proves your theory. So that’s something like a book or a story that goes in a circle—if you can get back to where you started, it’s probably got a certain amount of truth to it…I also feel like I’m documenting the time and space that we’re in.”
Leslie has done only a few other year-long cycles, mostly of his home in Hardwick.
On the last day of his Statehouse painting cycle (July 16), independent filmmaker Eva Sollberger joined Leslie at the top of the Statehouse dome. Sollberger featured Leslie’s work in her video blog, “Stuck in Vermont,” which is hosted by the free alternative weekly newspaper Seven Days. According to its website, the short (five-to-six minute-long) videos “feature Vermont artists, events, and oddballs.”
WCAX News anchor Kristin Carlson held an interview with Sollberger about the project on July 18.
The “Stuck in Vermont” feature may be found online at http://7d.blogs.com/stuckinvt/2012/07/ken-leslies-gold-dome-cycle-275.html, while the WCAX interview can be watched at http://www.wcax.com/story/19069626/artist-draws-inspiration-from-vt-statehouse.
