Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Laurel Leonetti puts the finishing touches on her mosaic sculpture, 'Life Delights in Life,' which she modeled after her own hands.

Art imitates life in a very big way

By Shari Kaplan

When 18-year-old Laurel Leonetti celebrates something, she does so in a big way--with a creation 7 feet wide and weighing 212 tons.

Leonetti, a senior at Los Gatos High School, spent the last few months working on Life Delights in Life, a sculpture of two cupped hands that form a bowl shape large enough to sit in. The sculpture will be installed on May 22in the lawn area near the art building.

A warm person with an easy smile and frequent laugh, Leonetti arrived at the optimistic title of her piece after reading a book of quotations called A Little Zen Companion Book. The quote about life came from 18th-century English artist and poet William Blake.

The inspiration for the sculpture itself came from Leonetti's art instructor, Joann Pfeiffer, who holds private classes in her Los Gatos home under the title A Place for Art. Leonetti, who has studied with Pfeiffer for six years, was originally interested mainly in drawing. She has since discovered both her interest and talents in painting, photography, sculpture and ceramics.

"I like everything!" Leonetti proclaims after trying to decide what her favorite type of art is. As a young girl, she says, she was always drawing. Sometimes she ventured into other types of art, such as covering the walls of her grandparents' house with a swarm of pink and purple stamps.

"It's interesting because whatever you make, it's coming out of you--you can see yourself in whatever you make. Just like when you look at other people's art, you can kind of tell what's going on inside their minds," Leonetti says.

About a year ago, while taking a night school art class at LGHS, Leonetti created a little hand-shaped ceramic bowl. Sometime later, Pfeiffer suggested that she make it on a larger scale. And that's what Leonetti did, starting this January. Her own hands were the model.

"She's very proficient at art and very good with her hands. I thought she'd make a good sculptor because she seems to think easily in three dimensions," Pfeiffer says. "She's really methodical to get everything correctly. For a sculptor, you have to be that way."

With assistance from Pfeiffer's uncle Harold Bianchi, Leonetti learned how to make a rebar frame and tie wires together to fashion the hands and fingers. She also learned how to make a sandpit mold, use risers beneath the frame and pour in the cement.

Using free or discounted tiles obtained as discards from local businesses, Leonetti hammered the tiles to pieces and laid them in a colorful mosaic that covers the sculpture. She also incorporated marbles into the work.

When viewers look closely, symbols emerge from what initially appear to be random chips of color and texture. Among these are a star, sun, ankh, ohm, feather, fish, butterfly, footprints and a serpentine swirl in purple hues that seems to tie everything together.

When her friend Steven Wilson passed away while Leonetti was working on "Life Delights in Life," she decided to celebrate his life by including a plaque in his honor as part of the installation of her piece.

Before she relocates to California State University-Monterey this fall, Leonetti will teach summer art school classes for children through A Place for Art.

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