Louise Nevelson (American, born Russia, 1900-1988) Sky Cathedral, 1958 Wood, painted black, 115 x 135 x 20" George B. and Jenny R. Mathews Fund, 1970

"From earliest childhood, I knew I was going to be an artist. I felt like an artist." By age nine Louise Nevelson knew that she wanted specifically to be a sculptor. She achieved her goal, eventually becoming an international figure in contemporary art. She is best known for works such as Sky Cathedral, a wall piece made up of boxes filled with various wood fragments. This type of work began in the 1940s, when Nevelson began collecting wood objects of all types and putting them together in unusual and innovative ways. In 1957, a box of liquor she received for Christmas, with its interior partitions, gave her the idea to put her assemblages into boxes. When her studio became too crowded, and she ran out of room to work, she stacked the boxes on top of one another. She soon noticed that this space-saving technique had created a new form of sculpture.

Sky Cathedral is made up of thirty-eight boxes, each filled with a different array of wood fragments. Not all of the wood fragments were found, however; once she achieved prominence as an artist, she had a number of them made to order. Her creation process is primarily intuitive and rarely involves drawing plans in advance. Choosing from various stockpiles of wood fragments, she puts them together with relative spontaneity, adjusting as she progresses.

The previous contexts of the wood fragments are hidden by the fact that everything is painted one color. This takes away their individuality and stresses their new function as part of a larger whole. Nevelson chose black for several reasons. First, she feels that it does not bring up the kinds of associations or moods that other colors can evoke—except for mystery, a quality that she values in her sculpture. Also, she believes it is the "most aristocratic color," lending the works a certain elegance. Black also refers to shadows, and Nevelson said "I really deal with shadow and space….I identify with the shadow." To make shadow and mystery even stronger elements in her work, Sky Cathedral is placed against a black wall and lit with diffuse light from the side. This makes the shadows even more dramatic, and creates a sense of sometimes cavernous depth within the boxes.

The composition is asymmetrical, yet balanced. Each of the boxes functions well as part of the whole, but could also exist as a complete work of art. There are many different moods within in the various boxes, which adds to the mystery of Sky Cathedral: some are open, with their contents clearly visible; others are closed to view; still others offer only a partial glimpse of what is inside. These varying amounts of access could find parallels in human behavior, in which some people are very open about themselves while others are more reticent about their lives and feelings.

Nevelson herself was outgoing, independent, and self-assured. Although admired by feminists, she said, "The creative concept has no sex or is perhaps feminine in nature." She feels that her works are "feminine" and "delicate: it may look strong, but it is delicate. True strength is delicate. My whole life is in it, and my whole life is feminine."

— Mariann Smith

SUGGESTIONS FOR HANDS-ON AND DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES

This piece can be studied with Joseph Cornell’s Soap Bubble Set (Ostend Hotel).

• Do a group project! Choose one color, or two, or three, and divide the children into that number of groups. Have each group bring in a cardboard box and paint it their color. Arrange found or junk objects inside. Glue with a glue-gun or Elmer’s. The children may need to find other ways to attach things besides glue—tape, staples, tying with string or yarn, etc. (It’s a great learning process to struggle with getting something to stay together. Often you must go back to the drawing board and re-think your original idea, but that is part of the problem-solving of artmaking.) After all the parts are attached, paint them the same color as the box. Here again, some objects will take paint and some won’t. Perhaps these objects could be left as is, or covered with colored construction paper. After all boxes are complete, stack them on top of and next to each other to create a Nevelson-like piece.
• Shut out the lights and view the boxes with a flashlight to see how light and shadows change the work. These boxes could also be stapled as a unit to a bulletin board, if each box’s bottom is glued to a piece of paper larger than the box itself.