Carolyn Leigh


Carolyn Leigh ~ Arizona

Painted Faces Series Barrio y Calle Series Out of the Ark Series Collaboration with Paper Portals Press


The Painted Faces series was inspired by three different stages of mask and body art. Nightfall Faces are the dark and light spirits of forest and bush. Primary Faces are the primal, ancestral spirits of village creation histories. Harlequin Faces are the festive, carnival faces of town.


Nightfall Faces By Carolyn Leigh 2005. One-of-a-Kind. 3 x 3 x .75", six pages, in wrapping with ribbon. Materials used include acid free paper, Tyvek hinges, Ph-neutral PVA glue, Golden and Daniel Smith acrylics, Renaissance Wax. The Nightfall Faces are painted in blacks and whites to suggest shadowy spirits that are unknown and unnamed. The "rattle" inclusion is the sound of something unseen in the bust at night. $340	Click image for more


Primary Faces By Carolyn Leigh 2005. One-of-a-Kind. 3 x 3 x .75", five pages, in wrapping with ribbon. Materials used include acid free paper, Tyvek hinges, Ph-neutral PVA glue, Golden and Daniel Smith acrylics, plus a coat of Renaissance Wax on the pages. The Primary Faces Series uses primary colors to explore primal face and mask forms inspired by the New Guinea people and their ancestral spirits. The "rattle" inclusion represents the unseen, stick cracking sound of something in the jungle at night when the masali spirits come round. Each book in the series is unique. This one-of-a-kind is based on both the clan masks of the Sepik River and the body art of the Highlands tribes in Papua New Guinea. Carolyn Leigh comments: "I spend part of the year in their villages and have been lucky to see a tremendous amount of fantastic art created by artists using only the materials available to them from the jungle, the bush and the sea." $340 (Two remaining in this series)


Harlequin Faces By Carolyn Leigh 2005. One-of-a-Kind. 3 x 3 x .75", 8 pages, in wrapping with ribbon. Materials used include acid free paper, Tyvek hinges, Ph-neutral PVA glue, Golden and Daniel Smith acrylics, Renaissance Wax. The Harlequin Faces series celebrates the carnivals and festivals of towns. The folk spirits are not totally forgotten, but now their colors are the vibrant, complementary hues of store paints. The "rattle" inclusion is the sound of something again unnamed, but still there in the back alleys and streets. $340



Barrio y Calle is a series of artists' books inspired by barrios y calles/neighborhoods and streets. "I am based in Tucson, Arizona, USA. My husband and I also have a home in Alamos, Sonora, Mexico, so the influence of Sonoran Desert adobe streetscapes is strong. We travel extensively and try to stay in older neighborhoods where we can walk and eat on the street or in small cafes. Some books in this series are based on a specific neighborhood and others commingle impressions from several places." ~ Carolyn Leigh

Calle Sin Sombras [Street without Shadows] By Carolyn Leigh Tucson, Arizona: Carolyn Leigh, 2007. One-of-a-Kind. 6.75 x 6.75 x .75"; 5 leaves. Dos-à-dos, two hinged panels on each side of a central connecting panel. Materials: acid free commercial book papers, Tyvek hinges, Ph-neutral PVA glue, Golden and Daniel Smith acrylics. Text: stamped with Versafine Archival Instant Dry Pigment Ink and Encore! Ultimate Metallics Ink, both by Tsukineko. Housed in slipcase of acid free Davey binder board covered with commercial book papers painted with acrylics. The rattle in the slipcase: aluminum sheeting and BBs. Another of Leigh's Barrio y Calle series, works inspired by urban streets and neighborhoods of the towns and barrios of the Sonoran Desert and the tropical cities of the Pacific Rim. Carolyn Leigh: "The two halves of this book reflect the changes in Tucson's barrio architecture after the coming of the railroad brought eastern Anglo influences to mix with the existing Sonoran Spanish style." $450	Click image for more


House of Cards By Carolyn Leigh 2007. One-of-a-Kind. Slipcase: 9.75 x 6.5 x 2.5"; clamshell box: 9.25 x 6 x 2.125"; tablets: 4.5 x 3.5". Acid-free commercial book papers, Tyvek hinges, Ph-neutral PVA glue, Golden and Daniel Smith acrylics. The "rattle" in the clamshell box is made from aluminum sheeting and BBs. The clamshell box is made from a commercial book cover. The slipcase is made of acid free Davey binder board covered with Thai momi-style paper painted with acrylics. Tablets and clamshell box finished with a costing of Renaissance Wax. Carolyn Leigh: "House of Cards" plays with the creation, collapse and recreation of our built environments - the interplay between human fragility and resilience. The tablet cards suggest possibilities even in collapse. Please play and create your own structures. The clamshell box opened upright makes a starting wall to build out from or create free standing structures, whatever works!" This is the third in the series of House of Cards. Each one in the series is unique. $900	Click image for more


Barrio Libre By Carolyn Leigh 2005. One-of-a-Kind. 9.25 x 6.25 x 2", five pages, in 9.625 x 7.25 x 2.25" slipcase. Mixed media using acid free paper as a base for the painted pages. Other materials include Golden and Daniel Smith acrylic paints, Tyvek hinges, metal bottle caps and scraps, Ph-neutral PVA glue, India ink, HP black inkjet ink sealed with Krylon Workable Fixative. A final coat of Renaissance Wax is applied on the book pages and the slipcase title. Barrio Libre is the earlier name for a Tucson barrio which used to be a red-light district. It has now become the more respectable Barrio Historico. One of the features of the book are the window "shutters" on the last page which is meant form the hair style of the girl who is "waiting for you." $750	Click image to enlarge



Out of the Ark is a series of artists' books based on the Biblical story of Noah's ark in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 8, verses 1-12, King James Version. Verse 7, the raven's flight, is part of the oldest known written text, the "J" text, from about 950 BC. Verses 8-12, the three flights of the dove, first appear in the later P text which dates from around 550 BC.

Out of the Ark: Land of the Dove By Carolyn Leigh 2005. One-of-a-Kind. 9 x 6 x .5", five pages, in slipcase. Mixed media using acid free paper as a base for the painted pages. Other materials include acrylic paints, Tyvek hinges, PVA glue, India ink, HP black inkjet ink, Renaissance Wax. Out of the Ark is a series of artists' books based on the Biblical story of Noah's ark in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 8, verses 1-12, King James Version. Verse 7, the raven's flight, is part of the oldest known written text, the "J" text, from about 950 BC. Verses 8-12, the three flights of the dove, first appear in the later P text which dates from around 550 BC. Carolyn Leigh: "Land of the Dove depicts the Dove's search for dry land: first returning with nothing, then returning with an olive leaf and finally departing forever when she finds dry land under the radiant sun." $600	Click image for more


Out of the Ark: Raven's Flight By Carolyn Leigh 2005. One-of-a-Kind. 9 x 6 x .5", five pages, in slipcase. Mixed media using acid free paper as a base for the painted pages. Other materials include acrylic paints, Tyvek hinges, PVA glue, India ink, HP black inkjet ink, Renaissance Wax. A series of artists' books based on the Biblical story of Noah's ark. Raven's Flight commingles the Biblical raven with the native American Raven. What did the raven find? Leigh's prose poem is based on Native American origin stories which identify the Earth with Turtle. Genesis 8:7 "And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters dried up from off the earth." The origami raven in Raven's Flight is based on the Common Raven, Corvus corax, which is common in the far north and the west of North America. It is identified by its wedge-shaped tail. $600	Click image for more

Page last update: 09.23.08