Lucien "Lou" Casartelli, founder of the Bella Design custom furniture and sculpture workshop in Macedon, is more than a craftsman. With the skills and techniques he has learned since studying woodworking and furniture design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the experience he has gained from helping painters and sculptors realize their visions, and encouragement from gallery president Nan Miller, he has become an artist.
Casartelli's mixed-media sculptures debut on the local art scene in "Contrasts and Contours" at the Nan Miller Gallery in Winton Place. The show runs through March 2 and features Casartelli's smooth, shining, twisted sculptures alongside the metallic paintings of Brazilian painter Hamilton Aguiar.
"It's an accumulation of all the things that I've learned and taught myself over the years," Casartelli said. "I'm excited. I'm really excited."
After graduating from the School for American Crafts at RIT, Casartelli worked in the studio of Wendell Castle, the "father of art furniture," for 10 years. He said that, among other things, he learned the value of technology there.
When he brought state-of-the-art production technology like robotic CNC machines and spray booths to his own furniture design studio, artists without access to the devices came from all over the area to use them.
About six months ago, Miller saw some of Casartelli's twist pieces for the first time. She brought the work to a prestigious art show in Palm Beach, Fla., and the positive response lead her to offer him the joint show this month.
Casartelli and Miller sat for an interview together on the afternoon of the show's opening. Gallery employees hurried to hang paintings and lights as Casartelli arrived with "Inseparable Love," his final piece for the show, in his arms.
"One of the things I look for is something that's different," Miller said, looking at the twisted, bulbous, heart-shaped sculpture. "There are many people who do wonderful sculptures, but when Lou showed me these twist pieces, I had not seen anything that looked like that before."
Q: How do you create these shining sculptures out of wood?
Lou Casartelli: I try to use the colors to express the shapes. I basically use a paint that has crystals suspended in it. As the light hits it from different directions it changes colors, like a prism. I think that gives the sculpture more of a life apart from just the shape. It almost seems a little bit alive, and I like that quality of it.
Lucien "Lou" Casartelli, founder of the Bella Design custom furniture and sculpture workshop in Macedon, is more than a craftsman. With the skills and techniques he has learned since studying woodworking and furniture design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, the experience he has gained from helping painters and sculptors realize their visions, and encouragement from gallery president Nan Miller, he has become an artist.
Casartelli's mixed-media sculptures debut on the local art scene in "Contrasts and Contours" at the Nan Miller Gallery in Winton Place. The show runs through March 2 and features Casartelli's smooth, shining, twisted sculptures alongside the metallic paintings of Brazilian painter Hamilton Aguiar.
"It's an accumulation of all the things that I've learned and taught myself over the years," Casartelli said. "I'm excited. I'm really excited."
After graduating from the School for American Crafts at RIT, Casartelli worked in the studio of Wendell Castle, the "father of art furniture," for 10 years. He said that, among other things, he learned the value of technology there.
When he brought state-of-the-art production technology like robotic CNC machines and spray booths to his own furniture design studio, artists without access to the devices came from all over the area to use them.
About six months ago, Miller saw some of Casartelli's twist pieces for the first time. She brought the work to a prestigious art show in Palm Beach, Fla., and the positive response lead her to offer him the joint show this month.
Casartelli and Miller sat for an interview together on the afternoon of the show's opening. Gallery employees hurried to hang paintings and lights as Casartelli arrived with "Inseparable Love," his final piece for the show, in his arms.
"One of the things I look for is something that's different," Miller said, looking at the twisted, bulbous, heart-shaped sculpture. "There are many people who do wonderful sculptures, but when Lou showed me these twist pieces, I had not seen anything that looked like that before."
Q: How do you create these shining sculptures out of wood?
Lou Casartelli: I try to use the colors to express the shapes. I basically use a paint that has crystals suspended in it. As the light hits it from different directions it changes colors, like a prism. I think that gives the sculpture more of a life apart from just the shape. It almost seems a little bit alive, and I like that quality of it.
Q: What do you enjoy about your artistic sculpture work compared to your furniture work?
LC: I'm more free to express the sculpture side. It is art furniture, but furniture, to me always seems to have to have a purpose. I like to stay a little more on the creative side. I still design furniture for clients, but this is more fun for me, and it's where I want to be for a while.
Q: How does the work fit into the "Contrasts and Contours" theme?
Nan Miller: I think it's perfect. The countour part of it is because of Lou. To me, there are contours in the shapes of all of his work. The contrasts is what both of them are doing, what Hamilton is doing with how he achieves the metal-looking effect and the contrasts of the copper and silver with color. Lou is doing the same thing in how he's creating the paint and the wood base and the metal on the end. You have contrasts of media and of color.
Q: What did you learn at RIT that helps you still today?
LC: RIT was a good stepping stone. A lot of this I've learned on my own or taught myself through doing work with other artists. A lot of my past has been helpig other artists create their dreams, their sculptures, their ideas. I've been doing that for the past 25 years, since I graduated college, and I feel now that I'm strong enough as far as knowing what I do and my craftsmanship and how to do it, that it's my time.
Q: What separates Lou from other wood sculptors?
NM: Most people who deal with wood don't have the knowledge he has learned in painting and with metal. He's purchased equipment for some of his other projects that most woodworkers don't have or even know about. He's absolutely projected himself into a whole different level from what most wood workers or furniture makers do. He's capable of doing so many things that aren't typical of someone majoring in woodworking and furniture. He has broadened his horizons tremendously. Now he can do his own thing in a way that he couldn't have before.
Q: Now that you're doing your own thing, what are your biggest challenges?
LC: The challenge is creating something interesting and something difficult. I always love a challenge. That's what keeps me going. I like learning how to figure things out and never saying "I can't do that," or "I don't know how to do that." It's "I'll learn how to do that." There's always a way to do something. That's just my simple thinking.
