Jean Noon ~ Statement

  Being an artist/farmer has created q natural rhythm for my life for several decades. The hours laboring on the farm and driving the tractor allow ample time for ideas to incubate and develop for my pieces. I am skilled at building and maintaining electric wire fences to contain my sheep, llama, and horses.  My sculpture is an extension of that fencing and the wire becomes the structure to conduct and communicate ideas.  Animal and human forms and  their  physical gestures inspire most of my work.  Pieces are composed of various materials including used sheep fence wire, rocks from the fields, plaster, bones, gut, and wood from the forest. 

In the spirit of Alexander Calder, I draw with wire.  I enjoy taking wire lines for walks through space.  I celebrate line, structure, shadow, humor, transparency and movement. I alternate between large, small, minimal, and complex forms.  I am intrigued by the negative space within and around structure and the evolution of the forms through the process of assemblage. My interest in and appreciation of traditional and nontraditional basket weaving enhances the work. 

The quiet winding and weaving of the wire around and around becomes both meditative and structural.  Materials assert themselves and a piece takes on its’ own gestured direction. I toy with balance and mobility with some of the sculptures becoming animated when agitated by a breeze, a touch, or a bounce in the floor.  Shadows amplify the sculpture.

"Drawing is the act of taking a line for a walk" Paul Klee