Thread #1

Post #4

My search for Acceptance

- or -

when did the world's idea of art cease being about beautiful works.

ABSTRACTS: Another name for - what in the world is that!? Or, the modernization of various art forms? Your choice of slurs or accolades. (The viewer always has that luxury.)

Studying abstracts is an education of monumental proportions. There are so many “schools” of abstracting that I am not young enough to learn them all. From Cubism to Abstract Expressionism (yeah, I know) each has its followings each has its detractors. It is hard however to ignore either the Picasso or Kandinsky schools. Picasso never taught, or if he did, there is no written record of it. Kandinsky on the other hand, taught a lot at the Bauhaus School, and there is much to be studied from his writings on the subject of abstracting. The one thing both of these schools of abstraction clearly agree on is this - abstracts do not arrive out of thin air, there must have been a subject of some kind to be abstracted.

Kandinsky taught that you must have a good composition to start with and to some degree making an abstraction of that composition is somewhat akin to reduction of the forms through either line or movement or both. Greek? I guess you have to really read and study him to absorb his genius.

Picasso by comparison chose to look at a piece from more than one direction simultaneously, thus producing a representation that was by definition distorted.

My personal foray into abstraction is on a very different scale and/or subject matter. I have a medium that supplies something most mediums don't: wood supplies grain and color which together supply form and movement before I even start. No painter ever had that luxury, or indeed, that restriction (your perspective will decide which for you.)

Having a wealth of form, color and movement in every piece of veneer to work with I have learned it is more my job to not screw it up than it is to create. Indeed, going all the way back to the beginning of this blog, I knew from the start that I didn't want to be a classical marquetry artist. Rather, my bent was (and is) to make beautiful things with the expertise I honed as a design/build cabinetmaker. More precisely, I want to put my veneers on people's walls for them to enjoy. Pictures made from little slivers of wood don't really fulfill that mission. (It is now becoming obvious that I am a slow learner in some ways because this preceding thought alone could have gotten me to recognize my future with “In Celebration of Wood.”)

But,

it's me Bob,

and I learn

how I learn.

Plodding on:

This is White Oak Veneer in a form I call “Blister” for its proliferation of knot clusters.

                                                  

While not exactly rare, it is hard to harvest so it is not really common either. Just imagine the gnarled log that yielded this veneer. At one time I had about 16 leaves of this magnificent specimen. I am now down to scraps and in the market for replenishment.

On the right is the finished piece titled “Composition #2 – Abstract #1”; it is the beginning of true abstracts in our work. You may be able to see that the piece is on two levels; the thin central level is raised on pegs about 1-1/2” above the wider lower level. In addition it is connected by an eccentric mini frame at both ends made from solid Wenge.

The lower, wider panel is a full width leaf of this veneer split into three equal panels all of which are framed with and also separated by, bands of bias cut Walnut. The top most piece extends the abstraction by incorporating semi geometric insets and also sports a false mitered frame. (False mitering is the corner joining device used when two pieces of un-equal width, meet at a corner.) Note also that the narrow upper panel is a book match of the left side of the lower panel. This is not an accident.

Interesting aside to this composition: The wider lower panel and the narrow upper panel stood in our studio for some time while Suzanne thought they were one piece and I fought her tooth and nail; I had planned them to be adjacent parts of a two piece composition (the smaller panel to be hung to the left of the larger panel) which I had planned to sell separately OR as a two piece composition. After weeks of non-action I walked into the studio one day and saw what Suzanne had seen. The mini frames completed the composition.

Not sure yet if this piece will ever be shown anywhere as we have hung it in our great room at the bottom of our stairs and we love it where it is.

The single most instructive thing about this piece is how much design work the veneer does in its natural state. Most of our additions arrived the composition at just “enough” without contaminating the piece with that single straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

Speaking of that straw, this next piece is either similar in its spare-ness or overwhelmed by confusion. This is a taste thing I think. If you want to be hypnotized and totally immersed in a piece, buy this one.

Titled “Composition #4 – Abstract #2” it is an exercise in unlimited movement and action.

Consisting mostly of Walnut veneer from a flitch out of an amazing Walnut tree it incorporates little areas of Cherry, Ash Burl and Myrtle. This experiment had no external shape in mind, it simply grew “like Topsy.” We both love the contained movement and gathering of many directional devices which combine to make a curiously contiguous whole. Hope you agree.

Now, this next piece is the very first piece that should definitely have hammered home the concept of “In Celebration of Wood” but it didn't until a little later. Indeed, a piece made just recently (un photographed as of this writing) with a similar technique was the eventual trigger of realization.

This piece is titled “Composition #3 – Whirlpool.”

“Whirlpool” is a four-piece-match of Myrtle Burl inlaid with a classic Art Deco stopped border device. It incorporates some quilted Sapele blocks which are echoed by a quilted Sapele matte surround. If this piece doesn't “Celebrate” wood, I don't know what does.

Detail of “Whirlpool”

Our journey toward our voice is coming to an end;

yielding the beginning of our ability to focus efforts on “In Celebration of Wood.”