A new thought, one involving Amedeo Modigliani

Saturday March 10, 2018 in the morning.

In the Italian, it is probably pronounced

ama DAY o - mo DIL yani

Not at issue here.
What is at issue is a kernel of a thought from a participant in my "Art for Artists" Facebook page, a retired art professor, Paul D. Hayes, for which I thank him here, a lot.

Paul had the thought that wood might translate the Modigliani nudes well. A bell happened, a rather loud bell. My mind's eye jumped to a huge collection of Myrtle "burl" I have which is best labeled Myrtle muscle figure. Even that name is not my coinage. The folks at Berkshire Veneer used the term casually while pointing out a flitch of veneer with great cross grain fire. I never thought of my flitch of Myrtle as "muscle" until they said that. So, I present to you my first effort of Modigliani nudes, by way of a thought from Paul D Hayes, a casual remark from Berkshire Veneers and Amedeo himself:

here then is my version of A. Modigliani's "Nude resting on right arm."

In the raw, veneer only and just assembled a few minutes ago:

And, the print of the original:

It is extraordinary the amount of detail your mind can place into this raw effort. At a glance you could consider it finished. I know I'm not capable of leaving it that way though. Indeed minor shading is what I'm hoping to contain myself to including. Time will tell. If you haven't guessed, I'm pleased with this start. Thank You - Amedeo/Paul/Berkshire for this beginning.

We shall see where this all goes.

Late Saturday........

Studying this piece has me mesmerized. I'm no longer sure I will do anything at all to the figure itself. Something about what the wood is bringing to the image is quite powerful. My next contribution to this piece will be a designed background and foreground. Modigliani was spare in his surround. He was right. She doesn't float however, she rests. On what does she rest in my piece, will be the solution. Strong contrast is Modigliani's device. I'm not sure because wood with strong color usually adds figure and might get busy. The process. Always the process. Time.

As I said to Suzanne this evening, continuing will just happen - when it happens. These solutions just arrive after ignoring and then being reacquainted with the piece in a new frame of mind. Time.

Friday, March 16th Evening.

After some false starts I'm almost ready to put Modigliani in the press. She will sit for a while until I'm sure I like it.

The background is slip matched random Cherry. Her pillow is Birdseye Maple, and her "resting place" is a single leaf of cherry with a live edge which has been false mitered to indicate her support. I like that she appears to float. The background has been self matted including contrary ends. (BTW: "live edge" means the lighter sap edges are exactly the way they came off the log, as in the shape of the tree.)

Wednesday March 21st (The day Toby the 'noreaster' arrived)

We decided the above background distracted from the planned nude focal. The temporary solution was to cut out everything but the matte surround and the purfling. The field is now pieced birds eye Maple, meaning it is made from scraps to add directional flow toward the focal nude. This is what it looks like now.

It is extraordinary how much pressure one feels when working with someone else's subject matter. It feels like it is somehow more important to get it right. This doesn't make much sense but it does seem to happen.

A word on copyright: Some art is in the public domain, which means you can do what you want with the graphic or design. There are exceptions however. Picasso is one of those. Apparently all of Picasso's images are FIERCELY protected by his surviving family. There are "agencies" in all civilized countries keeping watch for any use of Picasso's images in the whole or even in part. I am told they are quite serious about chasing down all transgressors.

I did a Google search on Modigliani and found no such organization in defense of using his images for whatever purpose. With the few exceptions, such as Picasso, most art has copyright covering the use of the original image for profit. That is to say making a copy and selling it or using it in advertising. It is rare however that uses such as this use of figure are going to run into objection even if the copyrights still exist.

As I understand it, copyright can flow from a maker to a descendant for up to 70 years after the maker's death. After that, it is in the public domain. As example, Picasso died in 1973 so his descendants can protect his works until 2043. Modigliani died in 1920 so his copyrights ran out in 1990.

All the more reason to do justice to this master. As I worked with his form the true quality of his art got clearer. Certainly the single most important part of working with anyone's form that is not your own creation. No more astute learning can be had than the actual touching of their forms, the looking deeply enough to see what these masters accomplished. Indeed, Modigliani's nudes are the most sensitive portrayals of their kind I have seen.

Although not named as yet, this piece's name will acknowledge A. Modigliani's genius in one way or another.

Saturday, March 31, noonish.

The saga winds down, and here she is:

"A Celebration of Modigliani in Myrtle"

The frame is a story in itself.

While prepping the piece for framing I discovered a simple error. It appears that I didn't square-up the core piece prior to applying the original cherry matte surround (see previous photo above.)

After calming down I simply reduced the size of the core image and planned a wider frame. My new intent was to make a mock-museum-style frame by using mosaic-like pieces stitched together. As that veneer structure evolved I realized I also like the idea of not mitering the corners but rather using an end matched pair at left and right and using cross grained assembly in the top and bottom. Hope you all like it because I love it. (BTW: an aside: the first try was using the sap/heart flitch of Brazilian Rosewood you can see in the sides, but having sapwood all the way around. Ouch! It dominated the art instead of enhancing it. So, I removed all of the sap wood in the top and bottom runs of the frame and replaced it with mottled Sapele for it's contrasting pattern but similar color structure which toned down the frame while still highlighting the art.)

With this new idea in mind I needed a wider than usual frame to carry the detail. My usual narrower frames are mitered at the corners and have a simple 1/4" dado to capture the edges of the 1/4" MDF panels that are my usual substrate. That prompted me to switch to slip jointed corners for strength at this wider than normal dimension.

Finally, in order to be sure that the veneer hit the frame just right and wouldn't shift in the press I made a center core piece 3/16" narrower and shorter than the interior dimensions of the frame and taped it temporarily to the frame veneer holding it at just exactly the right dimensions. It worked. It came out of the press just 3/32 overlap all the way around. Easy shaving with a sharp chisel.

As I have a small stock of 5/4 Wenge I ripped some 3/16 strips, trimmed them up a bit and made interior and exterior beads.

Monday April 2nd, 2018, evening.

Best laid plans is how the adage goes.

As good as my Modigliani is I delivered it today to Art League of Ocean City together with a piece I did a while ago called Tri-square for want of a better name.

This is "Tri-square" as it hangs at ALOC because I never took a picture of it before I delivered it.

This piece was an effort to make a piece without throwing away any veneer scraps. Indeed, each half is the waste or scrap from the other half. They were then attached by 7 pieces of Sapele plus a maple hanging bar viewable in the middle near the top. Three veneers only in "Tri-square."
A 6 piece slip/book match of Japanese Yew (the lightest color)
a 4 piece book match of Zebrano (the striped veneer)
and a single large leaf of rotary cut Mottled Sapele (the darker red areas.)

You may notice that "Tri-square" took an honorable mention at this show. As an aside, I was told by staff at ALOC that the juror indicated she wished she could have awarded ribbons to both pieces. In my opinion she chose Tri-square because it is original and Modigliani is derivative (of course.)

As you can guess, I am very pleased.