I came into the studio this morning and there was an interesting e-mail from Dave Higgins, a friend and one of my favorite artists whose work has been featured here on the blog a number of times. He said he visited a Corning senior center where they hold a weekly session to learn and practice the art of wood marquetry, which is creating pictures using thin veneers of woods as the medium instead of paint or pastel. It requires precise cutting and placement of the wood as well as a keen eye for matching the tones and textures of the scene you are trying to replicate in wood. It has been around since the 15th century and has reached some pretty spectacular heights.
Dave said that this group of mainly older women meet every Friday to practice this art and that they use items snipped from the local newspaper as reference material for them to translate into wood. To Dave’s surprise, it turns out that their favorite subject to copy is my work.
He told them he knew me and said that they looked suddenly afraid as though they might be in trouble for plagiarizng my work. He assured them that I would not be upset but would instead get a kick out of it. He was right. I do get a kick out of this and am very honored as well It’s a sort of affirmation that my work reaches the wide spectrum of people that I hope for it.
I had a similar experience a number of years ago when I was contacted by an arts therapist who worked with seniors. She would take photocopies of artists’ works and print them in grayscale for her seniors to color and said that my work was the most popular with her seniors. She said they really responded strongly to the shapes and lines in my work as well as to the colors in the original images. That was very gratifying.
I hope to someday drop in and see some of these landscapes in wood. I hope these folks continue to find them inspiring for their own work. The image at the top is from Bill G. at Colorado Marquetry. The image below is his translation of the USS Constitution.
Redtree Times 
Still waiting to see your landscapes executed in stained glass 😉
Gary– If I ever had the time I would love to try to do a landscape in glass. I can’t recall offhand if I have written about the stained glass work of *John La Farge* but his work makes me want to try my hand at it. I was also apporached years ago about a glass artist translating one of my landscapes into cast glass but we could never work out the details. Maybe some other time,
What a wonderful tribute! I hope when you see your “work in wood” you’ll share some photos.
I have two pieces of wood-work done by my dad’s hand. One is a simple heart plaque which appears ot have been made as a senior project, but the other is a piece of marquetry that shows a snow-covered church in the woods. How he ever found time to do it, I don’t know, but I’m glad he did.
If I can get some images, I will definitely post them. I have always loved marquetry and really admire those with the patience needed for it.
[…] in February of this year I wrote here about a friend telling me of a group of folks at the Corning Senior Center who meet weekly to […]