EPISODE 707 MAKING WOODEN QUILTS—START WITH A WARM AND FUZZY IDEA, DEC. 29, 2022
alan skeoch
dec. 2022
MAKING WOODEN QUILTS
Usually I start a wooden picture with a warm and fuzzy idea. THEN Imagination become concrete.
I am not an artist really….would like to be but difficult to find time to get the charcoal lines
in some meaningful order. More of a dreamer. So I work with small pieces of wood rescued from ancient lumber…old
door frames, pine flooring, battered snow fence, lathing hidden behind cracking plaster in our old
farm house upon restoration. Abused wood takes on a patina that is impossible to replicate especially when
made alive with a belt sander or shaped by my band saw.
No. I do not solicit praise or buyers. Just do the pictures because I like them. Favourite colours are
forest green, deep red, abused brown…a touch of yellow. All nailed to a backer board from a barn demolition
or a castaway snow fence. Or any piece of wood that looks interesting. Even parts from
a 16h century farm machine. These machines were once made of wood then painted. Old paint has
its own appeal…faded, cracked, rubbed away by human hands. NICE!
Currently I am constructing a forest of white pines that have been touched by he first snowfall
of 2023. You Want a job? Rearrange the trees to suit yourself. I had an audience on this job…grandkids now
adults…who stayed with me in the shop until the weather drove them back into the house leaving me
alone. Marjorie often throws ideas at me or says “come into the house, you will get a death of cold
in that old workshop”
WHAT IS TODAY’S WARM AN FUZZY IDEA?
IT must have been around 1920 that Edward Freeman planted a small forest of spruce trees as
a wind break on the north side of his farm house. Today these trees tower over all others on the farm.
Maybe I can replicate this forest. Couple that memory with the the year 1964 when Marjorie, Eric and I
reforested the entire farm with red pines that now have joined Granddad’s spruce forest. Then there is
the most ancient tree on the farm, a white pine that has been battered and triumphed over lightning strikes
and abuse for longer than we owned the farm. Why not put our all this together into a wooden quilt forest
that has just been dusted by a winter snowstorm.
HOW IS THIS WARM AND FUZZY IDEA MADE INTO A 3D* PICTURE?’
(*Three dimensional )
Take a look at the pictures of the forest as it emerges below. Is there a secret formula?
No. Just a lot of time…a band saw, a belt sander, a couple of cans of paint. The trick is
putting a dusting of snow on the pine trees. Maybe you can solve that mystery..
My workshop was once A mink house, then became a chicken coop, and now a workshop . The door and sidelights were rescued
from a big bin of scrap when the ancient Port Credit hardware store was converted to a fast food restaurant.
Start with a sketch. In this case a gothic farmhouse which lives in a forest. Fast sketch. Numbers important…i.w. number 1 = half an inch.