It Starts with a Gift: A Wood and Fiber Collaboration
I have
collaborated with Olena Nebuchadnezzar on three pieces. Olena is a fiber artist. I am a woodworker. So, how does such collaboration come
about? What does it look like? What is its impact?
This
collaboration starts with the heart: A gift for a dear friend. My friend is a
quilter and I decided to incorporate an allusion to quilting into a small
stool/ table. I contemplated a variety
of possibilities incuding marquetry,
“sewn” wood patches, and, finally, incorporating actual quilts. I can’t quilt; I can’t even sew! While puzzling over who might do the quilts,
I remembered going to the Blue Spiral Gallery in Asheville so my friend could
show me the work of one of her favorite quilters: Olena Nebuchadnezzar. When I first saw Olena’s work I was
overwhelmed with its beauty, attention to detail, vivid colors and nature
themes. But would she collaborate with
me?
Her positive
response to an email outlining my tentative plan surprised and delighted me. What ensued was a series of emails in which
we exchanged sketches of the piece from me and sketches of the panel from
Olena. Olena’s usual focus is nature;
and my friend’s husband, also a dear friend, is a birder. So, we settled
on birds. Finally, when the woodworking was
complete, I sent fitted plywood panels
to Olena and she returned them to me with the quilts mounted on them.
We have collaborated on three pieces .
And each unfolded just like the first piece: An agreement to work together, an exchange of
ideas and sketches, completion of the woodwork , completion of the quilted
panels. We have never met in person nor have
we even talked on the telephone.
Autumn Flight.
Our second piece was explicitly designed to feature Olena’s quilts. The woodwork and the fiber art explicitly
incorporated a Japanese esthetic and the effort was better integrated. Hopefully, the completed piece has some
interesting architectural details. And, of
course, Olena’s fabulous work jumps right out.
The quilts,
again, steal the show. Each of the two
panels features falling ginkgo leaves, a moth (Luna moth, tiger swallowtail
moth) and other fall foliage. The magic,
of course, is in the detail: The
texture of the background, sky and mountains, for example. The use of metallic like thread for the mountain
top snow and background flora animates these details as the light hits from
different angles. The stitching that creates the meticulous detail of the veins
makes the leaves 3-
The stark contrast provided by the black background in Olena’s quilts adds drama. Similarly, the contrasting woods provide interest value. Padauk is a highly saturated reddish/orange color when newly cut and contrasts nicely with the light colored quarter sawn sycamore. And, the sycamore when viewed closely has a delicate lace pattern to it like some of the gossamer effects in the quilts.
Again, details in the quilts are noteworthy. For example, the variable skin tones on the woman’s back are differences in light reflection due to the quilting pattern on a uniformly colored fabric. There is an impressive gossamer quality to the fur stole, even more so in the “see through” stole and incredibly so in the veils.
As in all of
her quilts variable lighting makes a huge difference and even animates the
piece- a quality that is difficult to convey in a still image. Also difficult to convey are some of the
subtler aspects of the work. For example
in the background of each panel there is a group of top hatted, cigar smoking
“gentlemen “ “eyeing” the girl. I love
this piece: The images, colors, contrasts,
and uplifting sweep of this piece elevate my mood. And I have tried to capture that feeling in a
short video (click HERE).
The collaboration between Olena and me has gone on
longer than expected. I expected to incorporate Olena’s panel into The Gift and move on. However, our collaboration was incredibly
easy and I wanted more.
Why did I
want to continue working with her? Some
of the reasons are obvious and impersonal.
Others are personal: Growth
oriented and egoistic. Her work is
simply first rate. And, that improves
the esthetics of our joint work. Her
work makes my work look better. I love
it when people tell me they like my work.
And, new people were expressing greater interest. And, for me, like every other artist/craftsperson,
self-improvement is a constant issue. So, collaboration was attractive because one
tends to learn more from one’s most accomplished colleagues. Finally, I am simply proud to work with a
person of her talent.
I have
profited artistically from this collaboration and I hope that Olena has as well.
We commented on and made suggestions
regarding one another’s work but the quilts are unambiguously Olena’s work and
the woodwork is unambiguously mine. After
The Gift I simply found myself
thinking about forms that might enhance the marriage of textile and wood art; a
line of thought I would not have engaged without the collaboration. And, that line of thought and the pieces that
have grown out of it has enriched my artistic vocabulary.
The Gift was a “one off” piece. There is not another piece like it anywhere
in the world. But, it was a new sentence
composed from my extant furniture making vocabulary. The table form evident in Autumn Flight and Girls Night Out has emerged directly from this collaboration. The form is new for me and it is a form with
which I am continuing to work. Olena’s
work has focused on nature so I was delighted when she agreed to do the art
deco ladies. Perhaps, working on this
has helped expand her artistic repertoire as well
This
collaboration started with a gift to a friend and has become a greater, more
lasting gift to myself. My work
benefitted by combining it with Olena’s.
I had a good time. I came away
with more as an artist/craftsman than I had before I went in. Did luck play a role in these outcomes? No doubt.
But, if you have the opportunity to work with someone you admire in
another field, it is well worth a try!
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Abraham Tesser started building furniture as a hobby
over 40 years ago. After retiring from
academe, about 20 years ago, he became more serious about designing and
building furniture. His woodworking
style reflects his academic background in a several ways. He thinks long and hard about design and
construction issues before creating the first bit of sawdust. He reads voraciously about design/woodworking/furniture. And, he enjoys writing and lecturing about
these topics. For more click HERE.
Olena Nebuchadnezzar has a BFA degree from Boychuk Art and Design
Institute in Kiev, Ukraine, with an emphasis on graphic arts. But her love of textiles pushed her to become
a self-taught fiber artist. Her quilts
attempt to show human feelings and different stages of life through different
seasons in nature, drawing the viewer's attention to the fragile, ever-changing
beauty of nature around us and commemorating it. For more about her work click HERE.
[i] The detail is
neither carved in the usual sense nor is it inlayed. The detail is turned on a lathe using a
technique called “inside out turning”; and the leg blank has a thin maple
laminate near the surface. See Abraham Tesser. (2019). A Stylish Stool: Quick Turn Adds Pizzazz. American
Woodturner, October, 2019. Vol 34,
no. 5, 26-30.
[ii] Gift Epilogue. When my friend visited the stool/table was
under wraps. I asked her opinion on “something new” and uncovered the
piece. Her eyes immediately locked onto
the quilts. She was clearly taken back by the quality of the work
displayed in the panels. It took a while for it to sink in that Olena,
one of her quilting “heroes”, was my collaborator. She almost lost it when she learned that the
piece was for her and her husband (a birder, hence the bird imagery). She couldn’t imagine sitting on this piece
and the stool/table there and then became a table! I can’t imagine a more appreciative response
to this collaboration.
