Vinyl Marquetry
I've tried to incorporate other materials into my work and plastic is one that isn't entirely alien to marquetry.
'Marquetry' by Pierre Raymond is a comprehensive book that charts the history, development, tools and techniques of the craft. It covers many angles and has been really useful to me over the past few months.
Plastic gets a mention alongside natural materials, whale bone, ivory, mother of pearl, coral as well as many metals.
Using the figure of the grain from a roll of vinyl 'veneer' (sticky back plastic with a wood effect) I have made a picture. My avoidance of pictorial work so far has been evident so making a 'proper' picture from a synthetic material has a hint of irony. As well as the materials being off the shelf at Wilkinsons.
Giving the sheets a firm backing I have cut the veneers into one another as normal. One was an imitation Beech design and the other a Walnut burr – both had surprisingly interesting qualities to their make up.
Quilting for men
I read this definition yesterday and found it quite funny. 'Male Quilting' was a term applied to Marquetry after labour intensive woodworking had become less in demand and relegated to folk art status. Hobbyist work was seen to have a similar relationship to quilting and stitch work.
I thought a bit about this earlier in the project, that Marquetry seems a male dominated craft. The intricacy and detail does have a lot in common with needle work though so the link made in this description makes sense. Quilting seems an obsessive hobby, requiring patience as well as creativity- much as marquetry does.
I don't know much about quilting but historically it was something that required many hours of work. Huge pieces produced by women over many years and continued through subsequent generations, all by hand.
Working delicate pieces of veneer is like working with fabric in many ways, creating joins and fusing materials together.
wood in the news
I have been enjoying the coverage of the timber washed up on the sussex shore. There are some amazing pictures of it on the net. Waves of wood which look like tiny matchsticks.
I wonder about the attention it has provoked. Would a public art installation of a similar affect have attracted the masses? Extraordinary alterations to familiar places are more acceptable or appreciated if they are accidental or natural.
Anyway, its a pretty spectacular display of wood.
Oysters
Things here are continuing with other stuff going on too.
Before Christmas I had dropped into the staffs Marquetry group to see if they had any ideas about Oysters…..Not the fishy type in shells but the Marquetry technique or effect that shares the same name. I found a definition that might clarify this a bit
‘Veneers cut across the grain of small branches of trees such as walnut, olive and laburnum, and laid decoratively. Popular circa 1700’
Basically these slices of branches can be assembled to form patterned sheets, which have an appearance similar to an oyster shell. To buy, these veneers are expensive and they often feature on antique furniture rather than being used for pictures. I like the idea of using the slices of twigs in some way and wanted to produce some of my own. I was introduced to a razor saw, a very dainty tool with many fine teeth for cutting and a thin blade, essential to attempting to cut anything to veneer thickness.
By lucky coincidence I had a couple of twigs with me and was able to produce some little oysters quite nicely. So this has given me some other things to think about. Without a lot of equipment creating sheets of veneer would be a fairly impossible task so this feels like a scaled down version, a way of working with a piece of wood from scratch.
Christmas brought this shiny looking razor saw too and a good opportunity for making use of the tree once it had done its job. I am still in the process of stretching its creative potential.
