One of the many joys we experienced while participating in The Aura Sanctuary NYC Experience was the work of Post-Modern figurative artist Leah Poller. Throughout the journey of the Aura Sanctuary experience, visitors can connect with Leah Poller’s bronze sculptures in the form of seven curated pieces from her 101 Bed Collection, each chosen to reflect the experience of the room in which the sculpture is situated. Leah Poller’s “beds” are more than just where one finds a great night’s sleep.
An Immersive Journey into the Art of Leah Poller
Bedtime, Homage to Salvador Dali, bronze
down etc represented the sixth chakra with its meditation room in the Aura Sanctuary NYC Experience. It focused on the rituals and products intended to relax the mind and body before bedtime and provided the perfect backdrop for Leah’s sculpture entitled Bedtime, Homage to Salvador Dali, pictured above. One of the down etc team saw the broken clock in the sculpture representing the split between day and night, while another saw the frustration of watching the clock while trying to get to sleep.
1. Who Is Leah Poller?
Identified as “left-brained,” or logical and verbal, in school, Leah was placed on the math, science, and physics track. Years later, she accessed her creative side when she moved to Paris and, subsequently, enrolled in the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieure de Beaux Arts. Since then, she has comfortably utilized both her business and creative skills as she has pursued her work as an artist.
On Her Mind, from the “Woman Warrior Series,” bronze
In a statement to the Manhattan Arts International “HerStory” 2023 juried exhibition, to which she submitted On Her Mind, shown above, Leah shared: “I sculpt from live subjects. Before commencing, we spend days of quiet conversation, sharing stories and life experiences. From the innermost thoughts of my subjects, I transform their essence, revealing the ‘inside on the outside,’ creating a surrealistic/metaphysical presence in the adornment of headdresses and attire. By seeking the soul behind the eyes of my subject, I create ‘soul catchers’ of their beingness, rather than portraits of their likeness.”
You can watch the video A Life in Bronze to see more of Leah’s life as a single mother of three and how she came to the lost-wax process of casting her sculptures in bronze from wax models. During her 20 years in France, she learned the many labor-intensive steps of the process in the same foundry used by masters such as Rodin and Maillol.
Leah has exhibited worldwide in galleries, museums, institutions, and public spaces since 1998. She’s won many distinguished awards including the Manhattan Arts International, HerStory, Outstanding Woman Artist Achievement Award, which recognizes extraordinary artistic talent and contributions to advancing the status of women artists. She believes art is “autobiographical” as it reflects the artist, their world, and their place in it. She does grapple with whether focusing on certain subjects in her work, as a woman and a feminist, may allow others to label it a “cause,” thereby minimizing the subjects and limiting the work. That possibility, however, is not going to change the fact she is a woman who is an artist, supporting other women who are artists. For those who want to support women artists in the art world, she suggested, in an interview for “HerStory,” that they “[a]dopt an artist, present your artist to others, support their work.”
2. What is the 101 Bed Collection?
Queen’s Bed, Homage to Princess Di, bronze
One thing we all have in common is the biological need for sleep. Where, when, and how we do it can tell us something about our culture and ourselves. According to her website, “Following a studio accident, Poller’s extended bed rest kick-started an incredible study of our relationship with the bed where more than a third of life is spent. In all its visual, literary and narrative forms, Poller uses the bed as a metaphor to capture the full scope of humor, pathos, whimsy, sarcasm, tragedy and passion in 3 dimensions, offering tangible evidence of our shared humanity.” In over 100 bronze sculptures incorporating materials including stone, beads, ceramic, and acrylic, Leah represents the bed, as it exists in our dreams and nightmares.
3. What Is Leah Poller Working on Now?
Ocean Bed, bronze
In addition to the 101 Bed Collection, Leah’s current work includes Portraits, a representational metamorphosis of the internal thoughts of her subjects; Gentrification, a study of the artist’s life as it moves through the process of gentrification; and Suchness, the ubiquitous turned art in the artist’s personal life.
Leah lives between Lecce, Italy, and Harlem, New York City. She is currently working at the world's largest bronze art casting in China. She alone decides on what and when she will create.
4. How does Leah sleep?
Pea in the Bed, Homage to the Princess, bronze
We believe sleep informs what we do when we’re awake. It provides the rest we need to create, and it can bring the dreams that become the focus of our creations. We’re always curious about the artists who inspire us and how they sleep, from the rituals they use to prepare for bed to the bedroom environment they create for themselves. In response to our questions, we were rewarded with Leah’s unique perspective on sleep, bedding, and bedtime rituals.
As the artist who devoted herself to creating the 101 Bed Collection, it’s not surprising that Leah recognizes the bed as “the stage on which much human drama is enacted, from making children, birthing, loving, murdering, [and] dreaming, [to] dying…the whole panoply of humanity has been writing its story on the sheets of our beds. So the bed, sleep, dreams have definitely occupied more than a normal space in my lifetime.”
Her bedtime ritual begins by asking who she loves. Before she falls asleep, she might ask herself “a question or two as self-examination. Read a few words of quantum physics or philosophy…or art criticism…or whatever… and remind myself where I am, what bed I am in, and hope I will wake up knowing where I am (travel and a circadian clock rewound too many times contribute to a “wherever” thought).”
Her sleep environment includes a dark room, a firm bed with cool, clean, high-thread-count sheets (never flannel or satin) in beautiful colors, several soft pillows in mix-and-match pillowcases, and a seasonal comforter. Our question about her bedding elicited a memory of the first time she slept on 1000-thread-count sheeting in a hotel in San Francisco and the response: “sheer heaven. I wonder why I never tried to replicate the experience???” She silences her phone after plugging it in to recharge and checking the next day’s agenda to determine whether it is necessary to set a morning alarm.
Even when her own excitement awakens her in the middle of the night, she takes the opportunity to “review the most pressing dramas before me at 4:00 am, make a conscious determination of the outcome I want, say a few words to the people I care or worry about…and look for the sand merchant again.” That may not work on the nights before an early morning flight, which “triggers an anxiety that makes it hard to fall back asleep. And since it often involves a time change, it paves the way for dull, sleep demanding travel that usurps the excitement normally associated with being on the road.”
The travel she’s experienced for work and life has taught her how to deal with jet lag. “I’ve learned to immediately live by local time…no catch up, just tighten my belt and keep moving! I feel like a fireman sometimes - ring the bell and I am in action mode!”
She needs to get the expert recommended 7-9 hours of sleep to feel rested, and she’s not a napper. “As I age, I get away with less, but when I feel tired, really tired…I call it quits and retire early after an innocuous evening.”
As far as whether she feels compelled to make her bed, the answer is no. “After reading a lot on this subject, after viewing a 1000 images of people’s unmade beds, I mostly stopped…it is my nest, and it fits me…awaiting my return where I left off.” No "perfectly made bed" for Leah, and we wouldn't have her any other way.
You can see more of Leah's work so far in the following places:
About down etc
For over twenty years, down etc has worked with hoteliers and professional housekeepers in hotels around the world to manufacture and provide pillows and bedding that will offer hotel guests memorably great sleep. Through our retail website, we seek to provide products that will result in the same quality sleep for our customers at home. We believe in the restorative power of a great night’s sleep, whether at home or away. That’s the reason down etc wrote the book on it, Roll Into a Perfectly Made Bed: All You Need to Know About the Art of Bedmaking.
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