Star Liana York
The richest art tells a story in many layers. It starts with solid technical skill, builds through a clear concept, and is brought to fruition through emotional expression. Star Liana York’s art as well as her life, has followed this progression. The result is a radiant body of work that is both personal and highly professional.
York was raised in the Washington DC area by talented, creative parents. She got a thorough education in three-dimensional art, and then taught metal design and lost-wax casting at a community college in Maryland. She also fabricated figures for the Smithsonian Institution. In 1985, already established as a sculptor, she moved to the Southwest. It was there that she became interested in ceremonies and stories of Native Americans. Her portraits of people and wildlife took on a mythical quality. “Joseph Campbell’s book, The Power of Myth, is a fascinating area of study,” she says. “The indigenous peoples of all continents have their objects of power, but so do ancient and modern cultures the world over. When I became interested in this subject, my work shifted from narrative to emotional. I went to Rome recently to study ancient art, and I continue to read and learn about other parts of the world even while my work is primarily concentrated on the cultures of the American Southwest. My work is my interpretation of the world view.”
York incorporates her ideas into individual sculptures as well as serial works with complex themes. One series represents the four stages of a Navajo woman’s life as well as the four seasons. Called the Fabric of Life, it focuses on the blanket a woman wears at the end of her life. York portrays a little girl raising a lamb, a young woman spinning yarn, and older women displaying the blanket, and an elderly woman with her husband, who throws the blanket over her as they walk. A current series, far more abstract in form, consists of effigies, fetishes, and talismans. Drawn from York’s studies of Lozon, the famous Apache medicine woman, these stylized images include different materials that York and her husband, artist Jeff Brock, find when they go on trail rides. Their horseback trips give them access to the backcountry, where they collect rocks of all kinds, including garnets, opals, and emeralds. They bring them back to the studio and combine them into collaborative works of art. York sculpts the effigies and fetishes in bronze, and Brock carves the natural materials into ritual objects such as bones, horns and shields that are attached to sculptures.
York begins with an idea. She makes no sketches or models, and rarely uses photos for references. She simply works directly with the clay. She then makes a mold, casts it, and applies various patinas, including polychrome treatments as well as the classic golden bronze, to which she might add details of color. When she has completed a sculpture, her original idea is realized, standing ageless and alive in bronze.
