Tag: Diane Simpson

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Diane Simpson’s elegant quirkiness

Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / While still in graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1970s, the Chicago sculptor Diane Simpson (b. 1935) experienced a serendipitous moment. Through a store window, she caught sight of a child’s chair made from corrugated board. An array of little flutes connecting layers of liner board made the piece unbendable and weight-bearing while keeping it lightweight. Simpson went out and purchased some of the material and shifted from collagraph printmaking – a process that uses a plate with collaged materials – to sculpture. After learning to use a jigsaw to cut the board at a 45-degree angle, she made interlocking flat shapes of her own design, then assembled them into full-fledged sculptures.