9th century candlestick project

Last summer I found a piece of elm in the woodpile; I felt it could be useful for turning something from, so I put it in the lathe and began turning. I had no idea what it would turn into when I began, but wound up making a candlestick from it. It is based on the design elements of various 6th through 10th century designs.

The piece of wood that I used was large at one end and smaller at the other, so the flared top and stem came from this piece. As a shape began to materialise, I realised what I could do with it, and that I would need to make a base out of a separate piece, (which I made from poplar because I did not have a large enough elm piece). At the time, I had recently been looking at the image below, and this is no doubt influenced my hands in coming up with the shape that appeared out of the blank of wood.

Universiteitsbibliotheek, Leiden MS VLQ 79, fol 72v ca 816
This is an image of a brasier (metal instrument for containing
live coals, used for heating a room) from a 9th century MS.

I have not found any 9th century candlesticks with this form, but there are many surviving chalices with the same basic design; a fluted base and or top and a flared knop on the middle, there are also many manuscript illustrations of this form used for many types of objects.

A Merovingian chalice and paten from the 6th century

10th century chalice with fluted bowl

The Tassilo Chalice, from the third quarter of
the 8th century. This one has no fluting
but has the knop and beading.

Detail from BL Harley Gospel 2788, fol 108v (the "Harley Golden
Gospel") of ca 800. Here we see a flared column base (other illustrations show
the fluting) and a flat section beneath with beaded decoration.

Ivory carving in the MET, showing fluted and knopped
column

Incorporating all of these elements, I came upon the idea of carving the fluting, beads, and banding into my turned piece and making a candlestick out of it. Unfortunately I cannot locate any pictures of this object taken as I was turning it, I think they must have been on that card that gave out on me.

This is a picture with the two sections joined (just
above the base) and having two coats of glue sizing
applied.

In the business of recreating medieval objects, people often get hung up on their own sense of taste and style, as informed by their culture. This can, and often does, lead to a warped perspective of what actual medieval objects might have looked like. Because I love wood, my personal taste would be to leave this piece as it is in this picture, however, any object carved to this degree, in the 9th century would doubtless have been gilded,or at least painted and partially gilt; that is precisely my intention for this piece.

I was only going on memory when I carved the feet into this base (by turning
a profile and then cutting away most of the material. I then carved the feet)
but I wound up making them too skinny at the bottom, so I had to glue on
some little pieces and try again for the outside toes.

Any recreation one might attempt of an object that does not exist, will by nature, be very subjective and speculative. The best one can hope for is to find as many examples of technique and style as he can, to support the design and decoration he wishes to use. In all probability an object like this would have been made of copper or bronze and then gilt, but I believe that there could also have been objects made of wood and then gilded as well. The closest gilt objects I know of from the time period, however, are items made of ivory. This, and the fact that many illuminated manuscripts have gold foil gilding shows that this technique was widely practiced; there is no good reason to believe that it was not used on wooden objects as well. In all periods of history, man has tried to make cheaper imitations of more expensive objects, and a gilt wooden one would certainly be less costly to produce than a similarly decorated cast metal ones.

In his 11th century treatise on various crafts, Theophilus mentions the use of gesso to prepare wooden objects for painting and decoration, including gold leafing. "Horse saddles...chairs...and other objects which are carved...should be rubbed with shave-grass' (still trying to determine exactly what plant this is) 'as soon as they have been scraped with an iron tool; then covered with two coats of white [gesso] and, when they are dry, smoothed again with shave-grass. After this, measure them [lay out] with compass and rule and arrange your work, namely, figures or animals or birds and foliage, or whatever you want to portray. After doing this, if you want to embellish your work, apply gold leaf..."

Much of what is written in Theophilus has been traced by scholars to be much older than the 11th century. Some text in this work even comes from BC Greek writings and early AD Roman manuscripts. At present, I have no way of knowing if this passage has foundations older than the 11th century, but given the descriptions of the level of ornament achieved in the 9th century, I find it highly probable to have been a practice already in play at that time.

Very hard to take a photograph with one's left hand, using a camera made
for the right hand!

Using a file and a scraper made from an iron-saw blade to smooth the gesso

I have no "shave-grass", but do have a fine file and some scrapers. I find that the scraper works best for the concave surfaces and the file does very well on the convex areas. This is the second layer of gesso, so it will be ready to apply the gold leaf after this. I had planned to apply bole over the gesso, but on re-reading Theophilus, I find no mention of it in this passage, I will have to do some more reading, and check a couple other sources. It may well be that bole is a latter technique. I find that using it looks better, because any place where the gilding does not cover or where it might be chipped or scratched shows dull orange-red underneath; much less glaring than bright white. However, as I just said a few minutes ago, it is not about one's personal preferences in taste that should dictate when attempting an authentic looking medieval object. Therefore, unless I come up with some evidence of bole being used in the early middle ages, I will have to apply my leaf directly over the gesso.

Ready for gilding (?)

I will begin gilding this candlestick the next time I have some free time from my work, and will post pictures of the process and the completed object once I have finished; stay tuned.

Wooden Knives

Somehow the years keep speeding up, and though it only seems like two months ago I did my last craft show, it is actually only 2 1/2 months until the next one, which means to say nearly a year has  gone by. I know I am not getting older, but they they keep changing what year it is on me!

Anyway, since my next show is fast approaching, and the table project is coming to an end, it is time to start making some things for the show in October. I will also be doing another show in November this year, so it would definitely be good to get some things done to sell. Most people who come to these shows are probably not intending to walk away with a buffet or a corner cabinet, therefore small items which can be carried away are the order of the day. Last year I did some rolling pins, and these were well received; more are planned for this year, but I tried to think of what else I could make. This blogging will be about what I came up with.

Some of the knives I have been working on
Each one of these takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes to make.

This was actually meant to be last weeks blog, but my memory card for the camera decided it was done, so I lost all the pictures which I took of the process of making these. The end of this week found me feverishly working on some designs which I must present to a prospective client on Monday. I was also in a couple meetings, one with a current client, and one with a tool collectors club I belong to. Nonetheless, I wanted to share these knives and discuss a point which is relevant to just about any artist or craftsman,


As I said, the main purpose of creating these knives is an attempt to make something which people can buy and take home with them at my craft shows. The challenge is to make something that looks beautiful but does not cost too much. I could carve leaves and vines curling up the length of these handles, and they would look even more beautiful, but then who could afford to buy them. I believe that in the 18th century, artists nearly put themselves out of business and helped spur on both the wars of that time period and the Industrial Revolution. "How?" you ask. Because, by creating all the incredibly ornate and lavishly decorated items, they set a standard of luxury that only the wealthiest of people could afford. This created jealously among ordinary people, and it caused inventive people to come up with ways of producing things more cheaply.

Time is, and always has been, money. When people go to museums and look in awe at the wonderful things produced by such craftsmen as David Roentgen and Johann Heinrich Riesener, they usually fail to grasp that these pieces would have cost millions of dollars in today's money; only kings dukes and bishops could afford to buy them, In a world where people no longer spend that sort of money for furnishings, an artist must curb his creative energy to suit the market which he is creating for.

A desk made by Riesener for Louis XV
(from Wikipedia)

In a world where ridiculously cheep items are produced en mass in places like China, people have a still greater lack of a sense of value in things. I have seen furniture sell in stores for less money than the local cost of the timber it would require to produce them. I recently spent two days turning and carving a candle stick, and showed it to someone I know who owns a second-hand furniture store. He showed me a fairly nice carved set of candle stands which came from China and cost 19$ new!

9th century style candle stick,
it took two days (20+hours)
 to make this

As an artist, how do you compete with that? The answer is, you cannot; but you still must try to go on doing what you do, because an artist is what you are. I started this blog in the hopes of sharing myself as an artist with the world, with a goal of educating the public to some of what is involved in the creative process of producing things. A set of 19$ candle stands are not made by artists, they are made by workmen who function as human machines; they sit at a stool all day, mechanically doing the same process on piece after piece. (I have been to Asia and witnessed this process firsthand.) They have done it for so long they are efficient and quick, but their work has no soul or spirit; because they have put none of it into what they have produced. Things produced by an artist are actually a part of him, they are his children, and each item he creates has a bit of his soul passed into it. That is the difference between something made by an artist, and an imported item from a factory. You, as a customer, are paying a premium because you value the spirit which you recognise within the work.

Handles on some of my wooden Knives

Hopefully in October and November, some people will be willing to exchange some of their hard earned money for a little piece of my soul.

Ivory Substitute?

In this post I had hoped to present part II of the History of Chairs, but the weekend schedule is too full to allow time to do that. On Sunday I will be attending an all day seminar presented by Kaare Loftheim, a traditional cabinetmaker whose work I greatly admire. There simply will not be enough time to get everything together for the chair topic. Instead, I will introduce another little project which is now in its embryonic stage.

This project first suggested itself to me in an unusual way, the idea came to me during the process of making some rolling pins from the wood of the holly tree. Holly is a very white wood, and has been used for centuries as inlay, exploiting that characteristic. After I had finished turning, carving, and polishing the rolling pin, it occurred to me that it looked a bit like ivory. I then began thinking that, perhaps, it could be used to create a small box in imitation of the medieval ivory objects one sees in museums.

carved and turned from holly

As anyone who has been following my blog is aware, my favourite period of the Middle Ages, is the 8th and 9th centuries, so it is from that period that I will look for inspiration for my box. Most surviving box type structures, from that period, have a gable roof shaped lid. Though this type is the most common, there are several flat topped examples as well; this is type I intend to make.

Brecia Casket 4th century
(found on the web)

The box pictured above comes from a time a bit before the medieval period began, but the same form still existed in the 9th century, as is evidenced from illustrations in several manuscripts of that era. Another form which seems to have come about, has the corner posts turned round, thus projecting beyond the main body of the box. A 12th century reliquary casket of St Catherine in the St Servatius Church in Quedlinburg Germany has this form, and will be the type model for my box. I have no idea when that form first appeared, but there are a couple other 12th century examples that I know of, so therefore it must have originated earlier than that.

top view, showing the form of the corner posts

These boxes, when carved in ivory, are extremely beautiful; sadly, due to the long-running ban on ivory trade, one cannot use it to make anything. Therefore, if one wishes to make something that looks like ivory, he must find a substitute. Though it is not perfect, I think holly will serve the purpose of providing that substitute. I did a test sample on a scrap that was cut off of the blank used to make one of the rolling pins.

a bit like ivory?

I have subsequently changed my mind about how I intend to ornament the box, so this piece will no longer match the design I have for it, nonetheless it did give me an idea about the challenges of carving this material in a miniature scale. I will probably wind up using it in another box, inset into the surface like the one below.

When one sees these boxes in pictures, they usually fail to comprehend the small size of the objects Ivory is not timber, and one rarely sees ivory panels beyond 140mm wide. Most ivory pieces one sees are between 70 and 100mm, in other words, not much more than the width of three or four fingers. Ivory is a hard material, nearly as much so as bone, therefore, though one cannot cut it with a carving gouge for wood, it can be scraped, which leads to the possibility, in the hands of a skilled artist, to achieve impeccable detail and accuracy. On the other hand, wood is less dense, and and therefore must be cut away in little slivers; it can also be scraped, but must be done so always keeping the direction of the grain in mind. If one goes against the grain, and, or, if the tool is not sharp enough, then the resulting scraping will only produce fuzz and muddle the work. This is why one rarely sees tiny objects carved from wood, and when they are, they are usually done in a very hard wood, such as boxwood, which is crisper, and more easily captures the finer details.

6th century wood and ivory box. I took this picture in the museum.
This end is about 300mm wide, so each ivory panel is only about
60-65 mm in width.
Notice that this box is dovetailed together!

As a substitute for ivory, holly offers a few positive, and a few negative advantages. The fact that it is white, being its chief drawing point. It is not particularly hard, however, so, though it may be easier to cut, it tend to be more difficult to achieve clean and crisp details. Another drawback, is that it has small medullary rays, which are very un-ivory looking, so one must be careful to avoid them. Also, since it is not very hard, it will not take a polish the way ivory will. I am still working on a way to finish it without making a thick layer of varnish and at the same time keeping it as white as possible.

Original inspiration 

My original idea was to make a box ornamented in a 6th century manner, with simple animal and geometric designs. I started with this drawing from one of my books, Early Medieval Designs from Britain. Half way through the test carving, I found a photograph of the actual metal object this drawing depicts. Initially, I had thought to make some sort of motif with these animals along the edge of the lid, but have not found enough variety of figures from the same period and geographic location to make a believable amalgamation of decoration. I do not fancy carving the same design 50 times over. (I tend to get bored carving the same design over and over, even if the end result looks pleasing.)

Sarre Brooch, in the British Musem
the original from which the above drawing was made

I carved the first animal in its entirety, once it was finished I was afraid to start the next one, so left it standing around for a few months. It would have been better to have carved them both at the same time, as this would have produced a more unified look. When I got around to working on it again, it seems my frame of mind was different, as can be seen from the variations in the details, Overall, I guess they look fairly similar anyway.

The first carving, done back in December (I think)

The second animal, carved this week. (I know)
notice the scale for size, these guys are each
less than 40 mm long.

On the first guy, I made a ham-fisted mess of his foot. On the second, the outline shape is too narrow, and cut too deep. (it actually looks worse in this photo!) Somehow, overall, I am still pleased with my first attempts at carving on such a small scale. What it has given me, is a sense of what is needed to create an imitation ivory box. A drawing of it, which I made this morning, is below.

Conceptual rendering of the 9th century style box
it will measure approx. 230x360x250mm

In the latest conception of this box, I intend to use the the First Bible of Charles the Bald, (produced in 845; [BNF Lat 1]) for all the decorative elements. There is enough variety of design to have plenty to chose from, and having all design elements originating from the same source, should give the box a genuine feel. One of the big problems with reproductions made in the Victorian period was that the craftsmen who created them took this element from here, and another part from there, and wound up with a hodge-podge which usually had a distinctly 19th century look to it. My goal is to try to produce something that looks believably 9th century.

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Table Progress - Part V

Last week we left off with half the steam bent parts for the table completed, so one would probably assume that this week I would get the other half done this past week. That would be a good assumption, except that suddenly summer pitched up. Since there is still another month and a half before the astronomical commencement of summer, I am gambling that there will be some cooler weather before then, and it will be much more comfortable to burn my fireplace for 6 hours when the temperature is not 32 (90 F) degrees outside. I did continue working on the table this week, though, and this posting will look at some of what was accomplished.

All central field parts joined now

In part 3 of this series, I began making the table top, but all the segments were not yet joined up. My process was to work it up in stages, joining three pieces at a time. Once these sections were finished, there were two planks left over which were intended for the ends. Upon reaching this stage, I joined two sections of three pieces, and one end piece, creating two halves of the top. The final step was to join the two halves together as you see in the above photo. After these last pins are cut off flush, I will do a final planing of the entire top to get one uniform surface. Once that is accomplished, it will be ready to add the inside and outside frame, completing the table top. In this photo you can also see the two extension leaves, joined, glued, and planed flat.

Another thing I began working on was the turning of the legs. Wood turning is fun and enjoyable, but it can also make a huge mess, therefore, I always do it out-of-doors. The warm weather was perfect for doing this, so I dragged out some pieces that were cut up a few years ago, and have been waiting for something to do ever since.

3 quarter sections of an elm log, rescued from a firewood pile a few
years back.

Unfortunately, these pieces were not quite large enough to get a leg of the size I wanted, so they will have to have a little extra material added. This is much closer to the size I need, though, than what one could get at a sawmill which is only 25 or 50mm thicknesses. (1 or 2 inches) These pieces were too long, which was good, because they had checked (cracked) at the ends; by cutting each end off, I was able to get rid of those problems.

cut to length (yes, with a hand saw)

In order to glue more material on the sides, they need to be planed smooth; in order to do that, I need two flat sides to be able to hold it in the vice. I mark a line parallel the edge, this will be cut off with a saw...

making a square edge

Once the edges are squared up, the pieces can be planed and the inside faces formed at right angles...

truing up the faces

Once these are finished, the additional material can be glued on.

gluing the additional pieces to get the required dimensions

One of the primary reasons most glue joins fail is because someone did not cramp it together well enough. To get a good join, the glue must be pressed into the pores of the wood, and the entire surface on both joining members must be thoroughly covered with glue, (but not an excessive amount). A good way to ensure that all surfaces are properly mated to one another is to use a lot of cramps. Care must be taken though, not to over-tighten them or all the glue will be forced out. If the glue was put on correctly and the cramping was adequate, these parts should remain firmly joined as one until some far distant future when the worms or fire reduce them to dust.

getting ready to turn

One of the hardest things to turn on a lathe is an out-of balance block of wood. In order to get it a little more balanced, I used a draw knife to remove some of the access material from the corners. I don't want to go too deep, though, because when I put it on the lathe, it may not be perfectly centred and then I might wind up with a flat spot on one side. It is rather difficult to find the centre of a non symmetrical piece; the best way is to use a compass set at the diameter you wish and make sure when you draw your circle that no part of it runs off the timber. This will automatically establish your centre point as the point where the compass pivoted. Once the edges have been knocked off, it is time to start turning.

Setting out the base of the leg

The first stage of turning something is to get it all to a uniform cylinder of the maximum size possible with the blank you are working with. Once that is established, I jump right in with one or the other end and start removing everything that is hiding the shape which I know is in the blank. I usually have a stick with my key points marked out as a reference to go by, but do not draw every ring on the cylinder, as they would very quickly get removed anyway; I just keep checking against my gauge as the work progresses. usually, when I turn two like pieces, they are done  together as mirror images of one another, but that requires having one piece long enough to get two parts from, so obviously I could not do that here. (The following picture shows an example of this method, but the photo is not very clear because this was actually a tiny object in the background of another picture)

A (not very good) picture showing
two parts turned in mirror image

Once one end has been established, I then work out the other end, which also establishes the overall length of the object. The material which is left on the ends of the turned object will form a tenon with which to join it into the horizontal members...

setting out the top of the leg

As I said a minute ago, my basic method of turning wood is to remove everything that does not have the appearance of the shape I am looking for; part of this process is to establish the basic shape I want and then refine it as it gets closer to the final dimensions. In the preceding photograph, though the basic final shapes have been established, they all need more material removed to achieve the desired variance between thick and thin elements. Carefully compare the final results below with this picture above to understand the process. In the above photo, the base is essentially the same diameter as the central section, but by reducing it a bit, I was able to get a more pronounced effect to the vase shape of the main body.

final shape; ready for finishing

And here it is, a leg of classical baluster form, with a coat of finish on it to bring out the grain. I used some powdered minerals and charcoal with my oil when I sanded it the final time; this enriches the colour of the wood. Since there are still many other things to do on this table, I will leave this leg on the lathe and continue applying coats of oil until I obtain the desired finish before removing it to turn the other leg.

first coat

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