Artists Spotlight: John Kingsley

Artist Spotlight: John Kingsley

WRITTEN BY MEGIN POTTER | PHOTOS PROVIDED

Welcome to the Retrofuture

There is an extraordinary place that exists suspended on the tension wire between the past and the future.

History is full of moments where the world was poised for change. The anticipation of its promises dangled before a population eager to believe in the promise of possibility. The beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America was one of these moments. As the Industrial Age faded, the Information Age was ushered in, reshaping our understanding of the artifacts that have remained. John Kingsley rolls up his sleeves and redesigns these pieces of history into practical and fantastical contraptions. Tinkering with technology, his work puts an original spin on the science of the extraordinary.

THE WIZARDING WORLD

In the mid-to-late nineties, John Kingsley combined the magic of woodworking with the science of entertainment. He became the Grand Wand Master, Titus Grondahl, and invited you into Grondahl’s Wizard Workshop, his 10’x10’ tent where you could witness the wizard at work. “I wanted to make it interesting for kids. I wanted to entertain them, so it was a visual explosion of sight and sound,” he said.

CAN’T STOP PROGRESS

Four years ago, Grondahl’s Wizard Workshop moved into a 25’ refashioned school bus. Stepping into the steampunk style mobile magic factory, young apprentices delight in the spectacle of flashing lights, the wonderful whirring of mechanical machines and automated apparatus, while Kingsley turns them one-of-akind wooden wands. When stationed on the Juckett Park grounds for the Hudson Falls Farmer’s Market, Kingsley crossed paths with local artist Kendall McKernon. “We made an instant connection. He was blownaway by the bus, the woodturning, the instruction, and the steampunk works of art I create.” John Kingsley’s work is now available at the McKernon Gallery in the Sandy Hill Arts Center.

TRANSFORMATION MAGIC: THE SANDY HILL ARTS CENTER

The Sandy Hill Arts Center opened in September 2020. The five-story renovated masonic temple houses the McKernon Gallery, as well as a repurposed furniture and more store (formerly a dance studio), restaurant, a private office for the Council of Prevention, and two floors of artists’ studios, event and performance space. “It’s a really unique building. I fell in love with that building, even when it was in its derelict state, years ago,” said Kingsley. This is a sensational setting for the various utilitarian objects that Kingsley creates.

ILLUMINATING THE PAST

By combining a retired musical instrument with the electric wiring of a light, Kingsley has created Instralamps. The wood and shining metal are material opposites, yet flow together beautifully. The contrasts present remind us to reevaluate the product’s intended purpose with what it has become. It demonstrates technology’s ability to both empower and alienate. This tension is fundamental to the steampunk style of art. Kingsley began exploring the idea of Instralamps with a recorder he found, but has since crafted other wind instruments into lamps; a trumpet, clarinet, flute, French horn and trombone. “I like working with instruments because I understand their outline. When I saw a Holton Farkas French horn (the same one I played as a teenager) it brought to mind the songs I played on it then. It brought it all back and I was like, Oh my God, I’m 18 again!” Kingsley is currently refashioning stringed instruments, adding a violin and a guitar into his repertoire.

CLOCKPUNK PIECES

Change is as sure as clockwork, yet the inner workings of it are a wonderous and fantastical pattern of composite parts. The turning wheel of the wood lathe has been replaced with the spinning dials of time in Copper Reflections, Kingsley’s collection of gears surrounded by a copper pipe frame, in which resides a reflecting mirrored clock. Movement and transportation are also evoked through the pieces he’s created with car emblems and parts. “There is a germ going through all of my creations and if you can grapple with that, you can get what I was trying to do,” he said.

THE MELODY OF CONTINUOUS MOVEMENT

As a master woodworker and member of the Northeastern Woodworkers Association, Kingsley’s imagination has activated the creation of live-edge hardwood bowls, finished with food-safe walnut oil, that are also for sale in an assortment of sizes and shapes at the McKernon Gallery. As an instructor and member of the Board of Directors at the Adirondack Folk School, Kingsley taught 13 classes this year. In addition to continuing to teach, Kingsley plans to devote more time to learning more welding techniques and to incorporate more metal into the flow of his future pieces.

See John Kingsley’s work in The McKernon Gallery, 216 Main

Street, Hudson Falls and on Facebook @SandyHillArtsCenter SS