“But then you think of all that material, the cost and waste that’s left over – especially if something goes wrong and you have to scrap a piece.
“When I started out with art, doing it seriously, I had no money to live – let alone buy art supplies! But leaves… leaves are free and beautiful before I’ve even turned them into art.”
Working with leaves is different to using more traditional materials. They’re more delicate, each with its own personality already imprinted on its surface. Stephenson wanted to find a way to keep the leaf’s essence while still adding his own mark.
“One day, I just went for it,” he said of his first leaf-cutting experience. “It was tricky but I managed it. Then, the next day, they had all curled up and were completely unusable. That was the first learning curve. I went back to the drawing board and figured out how to dry and press them to work with them better.
“The leaves are so delicate it’s like cutting a crisp without it breaking, you have to have such a steady hand. I love using things nature has made. It’s just a simple leaf; it’s grown, given us oxygen, and then fallen to the floor and back to the earth. It’s then trodden on and squashed into the mud so for me to take a few and make people look at them differently feels like a responsibility.
“Since I started making them, I’m forever just looking at leaves and marvelling at their skill to keep us alive when we care so little about them.”
Even before turning to leaves, Stephenson’s passion for nature influenced his work. “My studio is full of rocks and shells, feathers, plants, and just about anything I find out and about,” he says – and he’s not lying. When we arrive at his studio from Northampton’s Abington Park, the park that inspired his first foray into leaf cutting, and whose museum has displayed his work in two exhibitions to date, I’m astounded by the trinkets cluttering the space.
It’s a cacophony of natural objects; twisted branches, unusually coloured pebbles, bits of bark and driftwood.
“Nothing beats what nature makes,” he says, tracing along the veins of a dried leaf on his worktop with his fingertip. “It really speaks to me. I can’t remember ever not liking it and now it’s my entire life.”
For our Earth Day magazine special, we asked The Leaf Man to create a cover for us with a simple message. This is the result. Look for it on sale from your local vendor, 22-28 April.
Check out more of Stephenson’s artwork
This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy!
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