Burnt and Painted Chair: Establishing the Image (my creative process begins)

Burning images into furniture and then painting them in acrylic paint have been part of the artistic I have worked on over the past few years. I have been exploring this process, as I think a craftsperson becomes an artisan as the object d'arte becomes artistic while retaining its functionality.

As you can see, I have dismantled this chair to better sand the pieces before working on them. The drawings come from my resource and reference material gathered in my sojourns about our island, marshes and ponds. The images must be drawn with the contours of the chair as part of the design. The wood of the furniture itself must be an integral part of the overall image. While working at juxtapositionning the structural and art elements, I allow for serendipity (making fortunate discoveries by accident) as part of the creative process that may result in disaster or in a new aspect for the art piece. We shall see.

As I work through the creative process on this piece of furniture I will post the results at different stages of completion.