—Gordon Gildersleeve, Ace, 2021
“Oh my goodness, the moon…. I want a scoop. It looks delicious.”
—Gordon Gildersleeve, 2022
Longtime Lexington artist Gordon Gildersleeve died in the early morning hours of January 2, 2024.
In 2020, his steel and copper sculpture, “Full Sail,” was installed in the median in front of the Oleika Temple in Southland Drive’s 18-month exhibit, Retrofitting the Retro, featuring eight artists and eleven sculptures. LexArts teamed with the City of Lexington and the National Endowment for the Arts to create a contemporary sculpture show of local and regional artists to celebrate the revitalization of the corridor.
He had been working for the past several years on The Faces of Covidity series, and wrote about that series for Ace in 2021. The pieces were often composed of disparate elements ranging from cedar to recycled steel, bronze, found objects, torched enamel paint, gilding paste and acrylic.
In 1999 and 2000, Ace readers voted him the Best Lexington Artist in the Annual Ace Best of Lexington Readers’ Poll.
As he posted mid-pandemic, while hosting many open-air, open studio visits, “I have heard from so many great friends and good folks I will meet. Feels good to share and feel that I have moved somebody. Anybody. Even just a little… Be well. Stay well. Do good things. Be grateful, be kind, and be happy.”
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