June Leaf: People

A facsimile edition of Leaf's book on her kinetic, airy metalwork sculptures, spanning 20 years of tireless creation.

People is a facsimile re-print of a 1994 book on June Leaf's sculptures, many of them kinetic, needing just a light touch, the pull of a trigger or a single breath to come to life. Leaf has described her sculptures as drawings, their wiry forms carving and unfurling into space like exploratory lines on a page. Playing and fighting figures, animals and contraptions in the tinkering spirit of Jean Tinguely emerge from intuitive combinations of brass, copper and tin; found metal rods and blades; wood and paint. Regardless of her subject, Leaf's focus is on visceral whimsy, movement, and ceaseless renewal through material and process: "I think of myself as a dancer making art," she says, "or an aviator making art."