Chipping Away

A year and three months ago (almost) I did a post on my theories concerning the making of a roof-shaped box or chest lid out of a solid log section. I had hardly had time to touch it after that until October, when I decided that I really wanted to get back into one of my medieval projects; it had been so long since I worked on any of them. (I have several underway thanks to my ADD - most of which have been featured at one or more points in this blog.) After finishing the painting of the moulding that I had been working on, I had almost a week before the installation was scheduled, so took advantage of the time to take up the lid project again.

The lid as it was in September of 2018

Once I got started on it again, it was easier to pick up a carving gouge and have a go at it at any moment I could spare, thus, about two weeks ago it was mostly finished. I have even begun the box itself, but that will also take quite a while, as it will be carved to the same level as the lid. Sadly, I did not have any more of the ash, so I will be making the box out of walnut.

Bellow are some pictures of the lid as it is at the present; two years after it got started.

Second end

Back side. This is a "textile pattern" made to represent woven cloth

Current view of the first end and front

The winter light is not very ideal for photographing anything, but that is what we have to deal with right now. Bears are much smarter than humans, they go to sleep and wait for spring.

Carving the back was somewhat amusing, because I chose a "simple" design. Many surviving 12th century boxes have simpler and/or textile designs either painted or carved on the back, and all of the early medieval boxes I know of, have simpler designs to their backs. Using that information and a lovely 7th century textile pattern, carved in stone and now found in the museum in Metz, I came up with a pattern for my lid. The amusing bit is that it may look simple, but the time to carve it was no less, and perhaps actually wound up being more, than the design on the front.

Inspiration for the rear of the lid

And as it turned out after carving

The designs for this project are taken from surviving 7th century Merovingian or Lombardisch stone carving. Some of the patterns are also echoed in metal and ivory-work of the same time period, which leads me to believe that had any wooden box survived from the same time period, it well could have had similar designs carved onto it, and thus my lid is a faithful reproduction of the possibilities of the time-period.

This lion was the main source
for my lions; adapted to the
carving style I am using

Additional designs and sources for border decorations/
All of my border designs were taken from 7th century sources

I had begun this side in December of 2017 and in September '18 when I posted
about it for the first time I had done some more. More than half , however, was
done this October. Even areas which had been "finished" were re-done because
the grounding (background area) was not deep enough. The darker areas
are still from my original efforts of two years ago.

European areas which had been occupied by Roman civilisation still retained many of the "classical" design elements in the 7th century. These styles were actually never completely eliminated and show up to more or lesser degrees until the Renaissance, when there was another deliberate attempt at wholesale imitate the art of classical Rome. (there had been at least two prior efforts at this, in the 9th and the end of the 10th/beginning of the 11th centuries) Most of the designs for this lid have some connection towards that Roman tradition, as did the stone reliefs from which I sourced the designs, however, as with a lot of my original source material, there were also "Migration People's" design elements interspersed. Such is the case with the "Flechtwerk" or woven band on the top of the lid.

Flechtwerk, "Woven-band" ornament on the flat top of the lid

As I said, the box itself has been started and here is a sneak-peek at one of the legs. Again, In Italy, France, and much of Eastern Germany, the 7th century still much more resembled Roman society than it resembled the arts architecture, culture, and styles of modern people's general conception of "medieval" Europe. (which is mostly that of the 13-15th centuries) Thus this leg is right in keeping with that fading classicism that would have prevailed in much of 7th century Europe.  

One of the legs, taken from a
7th century stone sarcophagus
found in France
(there are actually several
similar designs, not just a
single example)

Finished

This house will probably never be "finished" but the installation of the mouldings which the last post was about is now finished, anyway. There were 27 section of moulding, each about 2.4 metres long, it went into the passageway, a stair vestibule and another small vestibule which connects to the end of the main passageway.

Below are a few pictures of the results.

Stair vestibule

A joined corner

Small vestibule
The pattern had to be cut down and joined in the middle in order for the
corners to meet up properly

Another view of the small vestibule

One end

The other end.
The possibility of the corners in both ends lining up was very low and
creative sculpture work had to compensate for the fact that the pattern
did not line up nicely

However, the overall view of it looks fine.

A reminder of what it looked like before this round

And how it looks now (from the opposite end)

Three Months of Painting

Somehow what I do keeps evolving. For a long time, I called myself a "cabinet Maker" but with an average of two commissioned pieces of furniture per year that did not seem like a very realistic title. At the same time, I have always found myself doing many other creative and artistic projects to earn my livelihood. For the past five years, I have simply been referring to myself as an "artist", which is what I have been all of my life anyway.

My latest project has again been in the field of artistic creativity and I have spent the last three months. (we are talking about 60+ hours per week) painting some large plaster cornice moulding. A part-time assistant also helped to sealed up the top and bottom border where the gilding was done.

Three pieces of finished moulding

The moulding comes from my friends at Decorator's Supply in Chicago Illinois. They have been producing plaster and compo mouldings and ornaments for more than a century and have some very nice products on offer. This particular plaster moulding was absolutely perfect to begin my project with. I usually do not like buying ready-made products because it means that someone else, somewhere in the world will also have the same product, but with this project, I knew the level of decoration that I was planning would truly make it 100 per cent unique and individual.

The mouldings come completely white, and crated up, six pieces to a crate. (Very heavy to move around) What follows is a picture sequence of most of the steps in decorating them.

The first step is to seal the top and bottom borders which will be gilded. After
that, the quatrefoils (four "petals" inside a "circle) all have to be filled in,
beginning with the middle. Since the piece is a "cove" moulding, it is easier to
shift the position to paint the upper and lower areas later

The piece has been shifted so that the lower quatrefoils can be painted

Some pieces had imperfections and bubbles which had to be fixed in the
process of doing the work

Once the middle and lower areas are complete the piece is turned upside-down
and the upper quatrefoils are then filled in. All of the paint is casein paint; it
works beautifully with the plaster. Once the "pink" is finished I move on to
a pale yellow and paint all the areas wanting that colour

Painting the "pink" is the most time consuming, taking more than one day for
each piece. The next most time is taken up with the mustard yellow...

...Half is done and then the moulding is turned back "right-side-up" to finish
The little knife I made a few years ago by hammering a nail until it had a
spring temper to it. It's shape is mostly what came of the hammering process
but it turned out to be a wonderful little tool and great for fixing minor slips
with the paint.

The green leaves follow. Most of the colours are applied in a wash so that
the plaster still shines through as can be observed in porcelain painting

A lighter "russet" wash and then a dark opaque add some colour to the flowers
which will remain white

The last step in the painting comes with manipulating a single colour of blue
to create an entire spectrum of colour for the remaining flowers
(in this picture, the paint is still wet)

For gilding, I used a "slow set" oil size. This meant that in the evening, before
going home, I would need to apply it, and on the following day (12 hours
later) apply the leaf.

I lay all the leaf on and then press it down on simple reliefs such as this

The top is more complicated so it must be applied and pressed down as I go
The drops of size on the paper speak for themselves as to why it is there, but
all of these drops occurred in the course of doing 27 sections of moulding

The final product - almost. The flowers do not have as much definition once
the paint is dry...

...so a bit of clear shellac in places gives them back the look that they had
when wet

Quite surprising for myself, was the fact that in the course of three months of painting all of this I really never got burnt out and fed up with doing it. I was afraid that it would become drudgery, but up to the last one I was still actually enjoying painting these. Now I have to get the space ready for the installation... 

Stay tuned.

A larger section of one piece, showing the entire pattern
(This picture was taken before the last phase of enhancing the blue)

History Repeats Itself

This blog carries on in many different directions and of late it has not gone very far in any of them. Circumstances in my private life have left me much less time to devote to this project, but from time to time I manage to squeeze a bit of time out for it. It has been a while since I have been able to add anything of interest to the portion of my audience which is interested in the Middle Ages and therefore it seemed a good idea to put something here for all of you who are primarily interested in that aspect of this blog.

Reading any history of "The Middle Ages" one will find many generalisations. This is partly due to lack of space and a desire stick to whatever general them is being discussed, but it is also partly due to a false presumption that "The Middle Ages" was a single time period and a single culture. (and, yes, this is also a gross generalisation) Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth and one could write volumes on the diversity of life based on regions within Europe, (which is generally the area inferred when Western authors are speaking of this time-period). Add to that the fact that the medieval period is a span of roughly a thousand years and one should quickly get the idea that almost anything mentioned under a blanket statement of "during the Middle Ages" must be a very broad generalisation with a lot of exceptions being expected.

One thing that has occurred to me as being useful in helping to convey certain aspects of the artistic and creative variety in the Middle Ages, is to compare that time period with a much more recent, and therefore better understood period in modern history. What I am referring to is the (mostly) 18th and 19th century European colonial period.

On the left is a replica of the American President, Abraham Lincoln's birth-

place. On the right, a painting from 1668 of the palace of Versailles as it

was at that time, nearly 150 years before Lincoln was born.

Very quickly and briefly, the point of comparison to be made with these two periods in history is the diversity of quality of life (measured by the quality and quantity of possessions, the availability and prevalence of refined goods and the prevalence of luxury objects) from region to region and distance from primary sources of commerce and industry. To bring the point home quickly, consider that the famous American President, Abraham Lincoln, (born 1809) growing up in his primitive log built house in the forest of the American hinterlands was doing so more than one hundred years after the glorious "Sun King" of France rebuilt Chateau de Versailles. (a continuous work of expansion and remodeling from 1661-1715)

Just as in Australia, South Africa, or the Americas, where most places were more remote, rustic and rudimentary than the cities and towns of Europe from which the emigrants had originated, life in rural Medieval Europe would have been much more "primitive" than what would have been found in large cities such as Rome, Mainz, or Palermo. (A modern reader will be surprised to learn that some of the largest modern European cities, such as Paris and London, had approximately 20,000 residents by the middle of the Middle Ages [1000 ad], whilst other now relatively smaller cities such as Laon, Milan and Regensburg had much higher populations [25,000 30,000 40,000 respectively].) In the colonial territories of the modern era, imported goods were expensive and the lack of sufficient capital and clientele to support the local production of finer wares and goods ensured that on a relative scale, colonists led a more simplified existence than did their European piers, irrespective of their social status. In the 18th century Americas, even the grandest of houses paled in comparison to the chateaus and palatial dwellings of their continental contemporaries. As wealth increased and more goods were manufactured locally and the quality of life increased in urban areas, there was still the same relative disparity in the more remote or "frontier" life in faraway places.

Geographic placement had everything to do with the disparity between these two
pieces of furniture from the time of Louis XIII.

Taking this into account, one should look again at the way we view "life in the Middle Ages" with respect to architecture and personal property. It would probably be a safe assumption that a nobleman living in the northern or western UK or the northern half of Germany would have less opulent personal possessions than would his piers in Central, or southern Italy or the heart of the Franco-Germanic lands in the Middle of the period in question.

One factor that adds another curve to the entire equation, however, is the shifting fortunes, over the thousand years of consideration, of any particular region. Consider for example, the fact that whilst the population of Cordoba Spain in the year 1000 was roughly 110,000, (actually the most populous European city at the time) by the year 1100 it had fallen to 60,000. One could probably assume, that in this area a lot of artists and craftsmen lost their jobs or had to scale back the production of what they had been accustomed to doing. Likewise, the city of  Paris rose from roughly 20,000 inhabitants to 50-65,000 in the same time period. It would be a fair guess that, here, craftsmen made a pretty good living during this time. In fact, there are a lot of surviving architectural and decorative objects which bear out this assessment.

I do not wish to make an absolute connection between remote areas and poor quality of products, because, as I have said in the past, good artists have always been found in every period and every place. The degree to which these craftsmen would have been able to support their craft and the resources which they were able to utilise in their production were very much relevant to the region and time in which they lived and to the degree in which they were able to produce luxurious and opulent objects. An artist working in a remote region with less available resources and less wealthy patrons would generally produce works of a more utilitarian and fundamental quality with an emphasis on practicality and functionality, but one must bear in mind, that even these objects would have been decorated according to vernacular stiles and to the degree of which the patron had paid for.

Two baptismal fonts from the late 11th or early 12th century, both found
in small churches in the UK, but the first is from Portchester, an important
trading town during the 9th-13th centuries. The second comes from a small
church in a remote corner of England, near Wales, a region not particularly
important for anything. (unless you are from there, then perhaps it is)

Both of these fonts, and many others can be found on a website listing all of the known, extant Romanesque artifacts in the UK, and is a fascinating "rabbit-hole" to visit.
Another factor which altered the productive "landscape" of any particular region would have been the discovery or improvements in production of a local natural resource. The area around Rammelsberg in Germany is one such example. This region was far enough away from most of the larger and more prosperous cities of the early Middle Ages to be considered a "remote region". Although mining had been practiced there since the Bronze Age, the increased 9th and 10th century exploitation of the minerals found in the mountain led to the eventual relocation of the Imperial seat of the Holly Roman Empire, with a palace being first built in the town of Goslar (at the foot of the mountain) by Henry II (Heinrich II) in 1005. With the imperial court in the midst of the town and metals being mined and shipped throughout the world, it is doubtless that skilled craftsmen and artisan could be found in abundance in this area, and in fact, the surviving portion of a throne of the 11th century bears witness to the skill of this region. Although mining in the mountain continued almost to the end of the 20th century, by the 13th century the political winds had changed and the imperial court had moved on; doubtless taking some of the skilled trades with it. From the story of this region we could compose a probable anecdotal story of the general rise and fall of the overall quality of craftsmanship in this area.

1875 architectural rendition of the Imperial hall of Goslar, which was
originally built in the 11th century. Sadly, this building is of little use to
a student of early medieval architecture and even less so for the study
of interiors as it spent most of its existence serving other uses to that
of an imperial palace.By the 19th century is was little more than a
ruined hulk.

I have posted this before, but it is a very nice example of what
quality furniture decoration could be in the 11th century

History has had many twists and turns with the rise and fall of empire, commerce and trade, and the story of the arts has gone hand in hand with it, but no matter the degree of flourish or decline, those in the furthest reaches of civilisation would have had a much simpler and more rugged existence than would their more urban/industrialised contemporaries. The goods and possessions locally crated for these individuals would have generally followed, in comparative decorative quality, to those same existing conditions. It was not a "medieval" condition which created artifacts of simple and "crude" form, but rather one of locality and economic factors as was continually demonstrated in every century of human existence right up to our own. (For example, no wealthy rancher in the western state of Wyoming ever built an estate so large or grand at the Biltmore, built by the Vanderbilts in the east of the US during the "gilded age".)

Videre Scire

Finished At Last

It has been quite some time since I posted anything on this blog and I apologies to everyone who has been patiently waiting for any news. The truth is that the project that I have been working on since November, and actually for more than two yeas, took far longer to complete than I had anticipated.

Originally I was to have been done by the end of December, but it quickly became obvious that that would never happen. I then projected an end of January completion but as thee gilding went on and on that got pushed into February. To push completion off even further the client wanted me to finish two more small rooms connected to the main room, so here we are at the middle of April and finally it is done (almost).

This is the same wall featured in the last blog when the cornice was underway

I said almost because there are still a few things that will eventually get done. For one thing, the panels on the cabinets are too plain and I am planning some parquetry for them, surrounded by a thin gilt border. There is also talk of doing some faux marble on the lower wall panels, but that has not been finalised. In addition, the two panels over the doors need some painting, so in fact, there is still quite some work to do in this room. The good news, for the client, however, it that he can finally begin using his office, something that he has been eagerly looking forward to for nearly two years, since the planing of this first took place.

I was so busy with this project in January and February that, were breathing an option, I would have forgone that. By the end of March, however, I was really needing a break and took one in the form of visiting Washington DC to see the cherry flowers one cloudy, chilly, spectacular Sunday morning.

I always love spring and all of the flowers that
come with it

A couple weeks ago I also was asked to participate in Catholic University's "Medieval Day" where I had a table set up with some of my carving, boxes, and a couple reproduction medieval tools created by myself. Unfortunately most of the pictures that I took did not make it onto the memory card, (I have no idea what that was about) but I did capture this very poignant image.

Time Travel?

Back to the room, here are a couple more shots. In honestly, when I look at the whole thing it almost makes me wonder why it took so long to get finished. The end was so long in coming that the completion was very anti-climatic. At least the clients are pleased with it.

The doors are made to look like the double doors found in many French
chateaus, but in fact, because they are scaled down, they are each only a
single door which opens from one side. Eventually these over-door
panels will be decorated with monochromatic painting

I don't like taking pictures with the flash on the camera because it tends to "wash out" a lot of areas but this one is not too bad and it gives a much closer to true colour impression.

Fairly accurate colour rendering 

Oh, yes, one more thing that still wants finishing; the leather on the top of the desk has not yet been attached. There is still a lot of decorating and furnishing to do to make this a completed office, but these five pieces are my work and thus their inclusion in these pictures.