Madeleine Lord
Madeleine Lord is a multidisciplinary artist, that has been focusing on sculptures made of scrap metal for the last thirty years. Madeleine majored in art at Smith College, where Leonard Baskin taught printmaking and professor Elliot Offner stated if you can’t draw you can’t make art. Madeleine has always worked on her art. Her oeuvre includes drawing, painting, woodcut prints, monoprints, photography, and animation as well as metal sculpture. Her first public work “Revolutionary Figures” was installed at Fort Washington Park, Cambridge MA in 1987. It included four life-size minutemen based on photos she took at re-enactments and a figure of a woman representing the D.A.R. who in the late 19th century transformed the fort into a park.
Q&A
In Exile, Welded Steel, welded steel
What are your earliest memories of being artistic? At age 3, living in Rockford Illinois, my friend and neighbor Sally moved to Baltimore Maryland. There was a picture of a Baltimore Oriole on the wall at the nursery school we had attended together. I started drawing Baltimore Orioles.
When did art become a pursuit? It was my happy place from first memories.
Are you self-taught or formally educated in visual art? Both. Made art, had art classes in all schools including college. Studied art history – so not an outsider.
How did you first become involved with CAA? Friends in Bedford MA in the ’70s were members.
In what other ways are you involved in the local art community? I love Arts Organizations, I was a Board member of CAA, and New England Sculptors Association. I am a Board member of SculptureNow. I belong to Concord Arts, Attleboro Arts Museum, Duxbury, Hopkington, Worcester Arts Associations. All these memberships are an artist’s lifeblood.
January 6, 2021 , welded steel + paint
What role do you think the artist plays in society? We are the mirrors, the tabula rasa of our shared now. We illustrate the narrative of existential reflection and enable contemporaries and future viewers to understand what we are seeing, experiencing.
What medium do you currently work in and how did you choose this medium? I work with IOS devices, (an iPhone, and an iPad), I came to this medium by sharing photo collages on an online site and finding other artists working this way. It was a natural progression from Photoshop and I found a great community of artists.
What is your creative process? Where are you finding ideas for your art these days? My art is inspired by the news, and my response to it. It is also a party invitation to the unknown, here is something witty, fun playful. Witness and Wit, my two wardrobes.
How do you choose your subject matter? Is there a reoccurring theme that carries throughout your work? Current work is all on the them of exile, families and individuals stripped of their roots, of their identity as they wander in exile to find a new home.
In your opinion, what’s your best/favorite piece you’ve made? I’ve been lucky. In the years I worked in IT for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston I befriended the woman who purchased regional art for the Bank . One day she called and asked if I had anything big. I had a 10′ giraffe, composed in my driveway in Winchester MA. It resides today in the FRBB plaza in Boston.
What is one of your artistic goals? I hope to make art that speaks to the viewer, that enables connections to their own narrative as well as shared narratives. Help us all to realize what joins us is greater than what divides us.
What’s your favorite place to see art, and why? Well-curated museums, hands down. The artists of centuries past and from our share now who have passed through the croquet wicket of the museum collection or exhibit are clues to how to talk to our shared now viewers, how to make work that matters.
What living artists are you inspired by? All artists are living through their work. Etruscan Italians pre-Renaissance, Cycladic Idols, Rembrandt, German and Italian Renaissance artists, Morandi, Diebenkorn, Hockney, Magdalena Abakanowitz, Giacometti, gosh where to stop? My most recent past favorite artist is John Chamberlain, who crushed old cars to weld amazing abstracts that crossed centuries in their vernacular and design importance.
Do you own any art by other artists? If so, what artists? Many. Outsiders: Galilee Aiken, Jimmy Suddeth, Merill Densmore, from CAA: Roz Sommer, from Concord Arts: Marsha Gleason; Corita Kent, Leonard Baskin, Mark Nielson watercolors, Lisa Houck watercolor and mosaic, quilts and other objects by anonymous…
Do you have any shows coming up? I am under consideration for Group of Eight in Attleboro summer of 2022. I have a proposal in for the Nearby Gallery Newton Center, March 2022. TBD!!! I have an exhibit with North American Women Artists (NAWA) and their Massachusetts chapter NAWA- MA. I have worked in the garden at Newburyport Arts Association, in Salem MA Beattie Park.
See more from Madeleine
Website: www.madeleinelord.com
Instagram: @madeleinelordmadimetal
Facebook: Madeleine Lord