William Leslie

William Leslie’s work reminds me a lot of the first project we did as a class. His work include mostly skeleton and skin-based projects that have light emanating from the center of the work. The translucent qualities of the material he uses to be the skin makes this choice to put light in the center very appealing. not only that but the forms he creates using a variety of different materials, but I would assume mostly wire, are both elegant and stylish. They remind me of sea shells in that they are very balanced would look good in the medium he chose and in a more ceramic medium. All in all, I think he does an excellent job of keeping his forms elegant and sleek while not putting too many twists and turns into them.

William Leslie

His process is as follows. He stars with strips of wood and bends them into an appealing shape such as the one above. After the wood has settled and the joints are secure, he then covers the strips of wood with different type of paper. He chooses the type of paper strategically so that only so much light can penetrate through. Lastly he coats the paper with a polyvinyl resin in order to really stress the tension on the paper so as not to have any slack in between the strips of wood. Finally he takes a regular old light bulb and uses the previously created structure as a lamp shade. William takes every opportunity to be creative in this process. He often changes things like the structure he is emulating, the number of light bulbs involved in the piece, and the color of the paper that is stretched. 

William Leslie

This is just another example of how he uses all of the variables possible to create different pieces. Not only would anyone want to see this piece in a gallery, but it would also make a very interesting thing to put inside your house.