Feb 15th, 2018: Wood You Couldn’t

[xoxoxoBruce]

David Esterly is the best wood carver in the world, maybe in history.
I’m trying to figure out how you’d dust it without breaking it.
I say you'd because I have a pact with my dust, it's doesn't bother me and vice versa.

David Esterly’s carving has been called “some of the most astonishing work being done in wood today” (Fine Woodworking). It is in the tradition of Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), whose spectacular cascades of flowers, fruits and foliage revolutionized ornamental sculpture during the age of Christopher Wren.

‘Don’t copy Gibbons or Arcimboldo or the Dutch still life painters; steal from them. Revive the old vessels — letter rack, portrait bust, trophy, overmantel, drop — but pour new wine into them. If you use a decorative vocabulary, use it with sculptural intent. Bring back the delight in trompe l’oeil, but (limewood being a monochrome medium) make it a more sophisticated illusionism, based on form not color.’

Limewood is called Linden here in the colonies.

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