Andrea Becker

Cuir Boulli

Cuir Boulli

Leather has been used throughout history to make body armour and shields for warfare, as well as for drinking or carrying vessels.  Cuir Boulli is the process used to harden leather.  In order to create a hardened leather piece, vegetable tanned leather is subjected to heat, which changes the property of the leather. 

In creating her leather pieces, Andrea Becker uses a type of cuir boulli to sculpt leather into various forms, from faces to abstract organic artworks.  She begins her figurative pieces by first creating a clay face from which she then makes a plaster mold.  When the leather is wet, she stretches the leather over the plaster form to dry.  During the drying process, she re-wets the leather several times and goes back in with tools to sculpt the facial features.  This drying and sculpting process is performed several times during the period of a week.  After the features are sculpted and the leather is completely dry, a leather dye and sealer is applied.  Pieces of driftwood, rocks, and other elements are often worked into the piece while the leather is still wet.  These elements give the artwork an organic feel, as if the artwork has been created by nature itself.