“Bill Jewel, of Historical Woods of America, approached me about the possibility of an exhibit using American woods from the homes of the Founding Fathers. I was intrigued, but my concern was trying to make a marquetry image with a limited palette of woods that grow in Virginia.”
Founding Fathers writing table
“In my mind the piece had to reference history, yet be of a contemporary design. I opted for a writing table with a trompe l’oeil top depicting a surface that had objects of the 18th century. To make trompe l’oeil believable on a horizontal surface the objects need to be relatively flat. My starting point was paper and something being written on it with a quill pen. I chose words from the Declaration of Independence, as if Jefferson were working on a draft. I put the words “this truth” and crossed it out, writing about “these truths”. I needed some additional flat objects to fill the composition. An open envelope with a broken wax seal. Old-fashioned glasses. Brass keys.”
- Marquetry trompe l’oeil table top
“The woods offered were limited in tone. The darkest wood was walnut, the lightest a creamy colored ash. The rest of the woods were somewhere in between. There were some golden tones that I thought would be successful for the brass in the glasses and the keys. To get a darker “black” for the ink and a few of the other parts I used the endgrain cut of the walnut. There was only one wood offered that had any significant figure, but in some ways it was the most important tree of all the historic woods. It was a horse chestnut tree documented as having been planted by George Washington in Fredericksburg. It was the last standing of thirteen symbolically planted by Washington between his sister’s and mother’s houses over two hundred years ago.”
- Marquetry with figured horse chestnut and other historic woods
“The board I was offered was of a very limited size but I was able to cut it into veneers and cover the top surface. The fact that there was both heartwood and sapwood, and some figure along with the unusual grey color, made it ideal for the background because the plainer woods of the marquetry objects would stand out in contrast. A few years ago I had worked on the Walden Woods Piano and was challenged in a similar way to use a limited palette of woods, all from temperate forest and nothing tropical. In the Founding Fathers Writing Table the focus was even narrower, with all the woods coming from Virginia. I did use at least a little piece of all the fifteen woods that were offered.”
Trompe L’oeil!
Enjoy these detail images and the related dialog with Silas in the comments section below:
"A quill pen"
"Old-fashioned glasses"
"Brass keys"
5 Comments
19 November 10 at 12:20am
1
I took a look at your website and first of all thank you for giving me so much “space”. Secondly, you are doing a good thing for the whole field. I hope you garner lots of publicity. It's a resource for anyone interested in marquetry and inlay.
19 November 10 at 12:34am
2
Thanks for sending the narrative about your creative process for this profoundly American piece and for giving me permission to publish your additional remarks as comments. Comment fields should be more like forums, encouraging more viewers to join in.
19 November 10 at 12:38am
3
The post looks great. I appreciate that you were able extract presentable details like the glasses.
19 November 10 at 12:45am
4
Calling out details like the quill pen and the old-fashioned glasses felt like a 'teachable moment' for expressing my amazement when I realized that you had modulated the shadow of the quill as it passed across the heartwood. That's when I took a closer look at the artful rendering of the glasses and other objects. It's interesting how constraints are one way of drawing out an artist's depth of skill.
19 November 10 at 12:52am
5
It was good of you pick up on some of the subtle things in the composition, such as the shadows changing species. Another thing I did was to give the glass in the lens more of an effect by making the lines behind the glass distorted. I also changed the tone of the woods slightly, as if the glass were not completely clear. This is something I have done on cabinets where I have depicted wine glasses, bottles, or glass vases. These details might not be readily apparent, but they presumably enhance the picture by making it more realistic. Doing marquetry with meticulous consideration of the drawing can be something that allows the viewer to explore the picture with greater depth.