They stand about six inches tall, their bean-shaped wooden bodies balanced on articulated legs and their arms reaching outward or falling straight to their sides. Just a tiny repositioning — pulling the arms forward or pushing the belly back — changes the body language altogether. A figure that seemed to be pausing thoughtfully to listen can suddenly lean forward as if about to lay down some trash-talk. And though all the figures clearly start with the same basic parts, each face is intricately carved to reveal an individual personality.
Holyoke artist Theo Fadel’s wooden figures, now on view through Aug. 8 at Nina’s Nook, 125 Avenue A in Turners Falls, are like marionettes cut from their strings, freed to live their own lives. They are part of Fadel’s show, “Imperfect People,” which also includes paintings and prints.
In a blog post titled, “7.5 Billion People Invited to Party in Five Foot Wide Gallery,” on her website, www.theofadel.com, Fadel invites “the entire world” to the Nook for an artist’s reception on Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m.
Fadel writes in the post, “Nina’s Nook is a true gallery. Architecturally speaking it is half room, half hallway and belongs to the same building typology as the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, as well as the Grande Gallerie of the Louvre in Paris, France. The Nook, like the Louvre, transforms an old corridor into brilliant exhibition space.”
The spirit of free-wheeling exaggeration in this post can be seen in much of Fadel’s work, as well. There’s a smart, eclectic humor driving some of the work, as in a colored woodcut that shows two cartoonish eggs, like miniature Humpty-Dumpties, dodging about among large, dancing cowboy boots.
Fadel smiles and shrugs when I suggest that the humor in the piece is dark. She agrees that the eggs are in danger but says confidently, “They’re gonna make it.”
Schooled in archaeology (undergraduate, Bryn Mawr), architecture (master’s degree, Columbia University) and atelier studio art classes through the Art Students League of New York, Fadel describes herself as a “voracrious investigator.” Her work is fed by her knowledge of these subjects, as well as her readings in history, Jungian psychology and literature.
I take a stab at trying to define some of the currents I see in her work — nursery rhymes, history, mythology and, thinking specifically of a painting called “The Battle of Bosworth Field” that depicts clowns in undersized cars in the middle of a smash-up, I wonder if there might be a sense of the old adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
The painting’s title is pinned to a particular historical event — a battle between King Richard III and Henry Tudor that took place in 1485. “But these guys seem like they could be clowns at a carnival I’d go to tomorrow,” I say.
Fadel says, “That could be part of it. But there’s a part of it that has to do with the weight of an archetype.”
Which may be why her wooden figures seem so familiar. Their bodies are iconic toy-type bodies and yet their faces are distinctly human. Fadel says the figures are based on Hitty, a wooden doll carved of magical wood, that was the subject of a novel, “Hitty, Her First Hundred Years,” written by Rachel Field and published in 1929. The novel’s popularity led to the production of Hitty dolls, and the author’s original doll is part of the collection of the Stockbridge Library Association in Stockbridge.
In making her figures, Fadel used wood-carving skills she learned at a 100-year-old German furniture making business where she worked for 15 years.
“They let me do some really nice, fancy things,” she says. “I was carving and turning and building fine furniture. Handling wood in all kinds of ways all day.”
She sometimes carved for 12 hours a day, Fadel says, creating ornate, decorative elements, such as leaves and flowers or hooves on the bottom of table legs. When carving with wood now, she likes to create a combination of roughness and detail. Leaving pencil lines or saw marks reinforces the fact that the object was made by hand, she says.
She touches one figure’s face
gently.
“I’ll tell you, what’s interesting is that I can make a reasonable portraiture, but I do not try to make a portraiture with these. But I do try to make them realistic,” Fadel says.
The figures are detailed, but not meant to represent any one specific person.
“But people will often come in and when they see one, they’ll say, ‘That looks like your brother!’ The reason is that there’s just enough detail put in there. They’re all individuals and that’s very conscious.”
“And it’s not to say, ‘Each doll is individually made!’ she adds, her voice rising briefly and ironically into a barker’s cry. “It’s a deep part of what it’s about.”
Her dolls might break if played with by small children, Fadel says, but she hopes adults will play them. In making them, she wanted to use her carving and sculptural skills to, “Make something that was an object that might have a wider application to people who come through a studio or go to a show. People are sometimes afraid of sculpture.”
I say, “Dolls can be scary, too.”
“Oh, they’re certainly scary. But I mean in that way that people are intimidated sometimes by art,” Fadel says. “They like a painting, but they’re not sure they’re supposed to buy a painting. All of art is all toys. It’s all play, which is speculative
activity.”
Her dolls make this reality, “stark,” she says. “Very stark.”
And while doll makers traditionally like to provide each doll with a name and story, Fadel prefers not to.
“If someone takes one, I want them to make the story,” she says.
Where to find it
Nina’s Nook, 125 Avenue A in Turners Falls. Hours are: Thursday through Saturday, 12 to 5 p.m. and by appointment. Contact: 413-834-8800 or visit: www.ninasnook.com
Theo Fadel has a studio at One Cottage St., Easthampton (Studio #428). See more of her work online at: www.theofadel.com