Ion Art: Arts and Culture magazine

Artist Profile:

by Zeek Taylor

Leon Niehues makes baskets that often transcend the traditional utilitarian purpose of the object. Working in his Huntsville studio, he revises one of the world's oldest crafts; creating contemporary abstract sculptural pieces that are recognized worldwide as fine art. "I don't really think much about craft as fine art," Niehues says. "My work is what it is and I'm satisfied with either term. I do realize that sometimes I'm thinking like an artist; using fresh ideas to create a one of a kind object. At other times I'm content to repeat smaller work with good craftsmanship."

A Family Affair

Niehues began making baskets with his wife in 1981; using self-taught design principles. After a couple of years selling their work at local craft shows, the couple noticed buyers were purchasing their work as "collectibles." It was natural then for them to consider their creations not as mere baskets but as display objects.

During the past twenty-six years, Niehues has at times turned his career into a family affair. After first working with his wife, in 1992 he was later assisted by his son Matthew, and eventually by his youngest son Evan. For the past six years, Niehues has worked alone in his studio high on a hill in the outskirts of Huntsville, AR.

Natural Art

Except for the luxury of air-conditioning and music coming from a CD player, visiting the Niehues studio is like stepping back in time. The studio, hidden in a grove of trees, is separated from his residence by a large garden. After walking past stacks of various natural materials and dyeing vats, one enters the quaint shop and views time honored tools such as splint knives, drawknives, and a shavehorse bench. A large table is filled with ready-to-use splints and other assorted materials. The various vignettes of haphazardly arranged materials would be a delight to any lover of still-life; the focal point a display of finished baskets filling a table near the rear wall of the studio.

Niehues gathers the native white oak logs that he turns into the splints that comprise the main component of each basket. "I like the idea of using materials from where I live," he says. "It seems to give the work a good foundationand a certain amount of integrity." He also incorporates coralberry runners into his work. The reed-like runners are harvested from acreage in South Madison County that Niehaus has owned since 1975 when he and his wife, Sharon, moved from Kansas to Arkansas as part of the "back to the land" movement.

The Style of the Craft

The technique he uses to make the thin slats from the fresh white oak is the "splint knife method." Little used outside the Ozarks, it involves pulling the splint knife through the prepared wood to produce flexible weaving material. He also uses a drawknife, as well as, smaller tools and scissors. Niehues says, "My tools remain simple." While deftly maneuvering the sharp tools he notes, "In my entire basket making career, I have never had to have any stitches in my hands."

After the splints are prepared, some are organically dyed, primarily with pulverized walnut hulls soaked in water, and then the splints are woven into baskets. Niehues does not use forms during the process but instinctively weaves each basket into a pleasing shape. The splints are then drilled with a rotary tool and stitched together with waxed linen thread. Employing traditional splint techniques combined with self-developed new procedures, he successfully melds the 10,000 year-old craft with 21st century style.

Although Niehues still makes classically shaped baskets, some have elongated, occasionally slanted, vertical styling with repetitive designs made possible by weaving together the different colored splints. He presents the baskets with unrestricted boundaries reined in only by his eye for esthetics. Working constantly, he is able to produce no more than fifty baskets each year.

Praise and Honors

Niehues has also created square woven structures that he refers to as "buildings." For these and some of the more stylized pieces he adds charcoal gray emery-cloth, an unorthodox material for basket making. He first used emery-cloth, a type of sandpaper, in 1998 when he made a mask that was included in an exhibition for the Philadelphia Craft Show. He returned to using emery cloth in 2001 for a national exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center; creating a large and complex structure that is now part of the Center's permanent collection.

The re-interpretation of what many think of as a "lowly craft" has garnered much praise and many honors for Niehues. In 2005, he was named as an "Arkansas Living Treasure" by the Department of Arkansas Heritage and Arkansas Crafts Council. He has won countless accolades and awards and has been featured in numerous books, magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times. Niehues' baskets are in several museums and private and corporate collections including; the first permanent White House Craft Collection in Washington D.C.; The American Embassy of Taipei, Taiwan; and the American Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Successful at self-marketing, Niehues sells his work by appointment or through his website www.Leon-Niehues.com. In addition, he sells and displays in some of the most prestigious shows in the nation including Cherry Creek in Colorado, and the Smithsonian Show in Washington D.C.

Looking to the future Niehues says, "I have some good ideas taking shape for projects that will keep life interesting." It is certain his collecting public will be anxiouslyawaiting Leon Niehues' newest designs.