Artist Lavern Kelley (1928 - 1998)

Spring Work Made Easy

Date1990

DimensionsOverall: 6 × 22 1/4 × 9 1/4 in. (15.2 × 56.5 × 23.5 cm)

Object numberF0165.1991

Credit LineCollection of Fenimore Farm. Museum Purchase

Photograph by Richard Walker

Label TextLavern Kelley was born in 1928 in Oneonta and has lived in the same family farmhouse his entire life. In 1935, while recovering from appendicitis, he received a pen knife as a gift and began carving. He initially carved vehicles, but added animals and human figures to his repertoire in the 1970s. Kelley created Spring Work Made Easy by working in front of the public during the summer of 1990, in a residency funded by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts through Gallery 53 Artworks in Cooperstown. Like many of his multi-faceted works, this piece documents the disappearing lifestyle of the family farmer of upstate New York, and is drawn from a lifetime of first-hand experience.
Bibliography"Lavern Kelley: A Rural Life." Exhibition Catalog, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, 1988.

Chuck and Jan Rosenak, "The M.A.F.A. Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Folk Art and Artists." NY: 1990. p. 171.

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