If we planned to market “L’art du menuisier: The Book of Plates” to a second genus, it would likely be to the Corvus of the world – the crows. Not only do these birds appreciate shiny objects, but they have been observed both using and making tools (unlike some members of online forums).
Suzanne “Saucy Indexer” Ellison has been spending her free time transforming pre-press proofs of “The Book of Plates” into an art project. Here are her latest images.
— Christopher Schwarz
Exquisite!
Quoth the raven… We want more!
Crows are also known to make a lot of noise about nothing….also a trait of woodworking forum contributors.
It might be noise about nothing to you but to the crows it has a definite purpose. People are often guilty of thinking what they don’t understand is useless noise.
strange, – you both make a good point.
You just have to love Suzanne! Tying the Roubo plates together with the prosthetics of ” Calvin Cobb Radio Woodworker” Something to crow about!
Suzanne has generated so much impressive and out of the box artwork with material from various woodworking books, she needs get her own book published to showcase this amazing stuff: ‘The art of Lost Art Press’
(I am only partly choking 🙂 )
Or, ” The Saucy Indexer Does Roubo”.
(Sorry Suzanne. There’s something about this blog…)
That’s OK. If Roubo were alive today I would probably date him.
Those are really nice. They almost have a 3D look. I’m with carpenterman, a book would be cool.
I remember being told when young that what distinguished man (now we should maybe say humankind?) from the other animals was his (her) use of tools — then came the awkward observation of tool use amongst crows, so it became humans being distinguished as tool makers, then we saw crow family tool makers — recently we saw (google the great vid) parakeets teaching each other to make and use tools (seems parrots and crows are vying to exceed the pesky humans). Coming soon – an anarchist crow who runs five day chest or nest-building/pizza-eating/beer-drinking school in a tree-top near you.
Danny (Dave)
Suzanne, do you have a website where you sell your art, or do you just make it for fun for yourself?
The prosthetic leg on the crow in the first image brings to mind some photos I first encountered in a book entitled Surrealist Masculinities which predictably (for some I suppose) discusses issues related to masculinity in surrealist art. I can only find a link to one photo right now. http://images.artnet.com/images_us/magazine/books/cone/cone10-3-07-16.jpg
Two key players in the Surrealist movements, Louis Aragon, and André Breton spent time at a French military hospital Val-de-Grâce where they encountered soldiers wounded in the 1st World War who were being rehabilitated to work at various occupations after the loss of limbs etc.. There is a lot more to it, but the shock those two men experienced seeing body parts lost and replaced by strap on prosthetic tools arguably influenced them and the development of their artistic kinfolk like Max Ernst who had an obvious influence, whether conscious or not, on Ms. Ellison’s lovely work. http://mediation.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ens-dada/popup08.html
What I haven’t seen, but wonder about is whether there is anything documenting a similar approach to woodworking tools either at that time or later. In the first photo I linked to and others like it I’ve seen from the 1st World War era, the tools are agricultural and somewhat general in use. Woodworking generally involves using numerous tools so adaptation would have to be different and might not involve a tool being literally strapped on in place of a limb unless the goal was to rehabilitate an injured man for a factory job.
It’s along shot, but if anyone knows where to find any imagery or other information related to 1st World War era or later (earlier is fine too) prosthetic adaptations for woodworking, I’d really appreciate a link.
I think you have found the sole remaining Masters/PhD thesis that has not been beat to death.
It was a bit more complicated and delved into some abstract mathematical ideas and the history of textiles (as imagined by Gottfried Semper at least) as well as prosthetics and other body modification (see stelarc’s suspensions via google if you aren’t at work and aren’t squeamish for some idea of how they all relate) but indeed I did have a Masters thesis concept along those lines. My supposedly forward thinking architecture school wasn’t having it though.
With the 100 year anniversary of WWI there are many articles about prosthetic innovations for the huge number of injured veterans. One prosthetic was the adaptable Siemens-Schuckert Universal Arm. Although I’m familiar with the Surrealists, my inspiration for the crows came from recently reading of two books on crows and ravens and a small steampunk bird sculpture.
Thanks saucy! That was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Most of my reading on the subject was 20-or-so to about 6-7 years ago. Hadn’t thought about the effect of the 100 yr anniversary in bringing the subject up. Searching for Siemens-Schuckert turned up a CNN article with an image of a man with a prosthetic arm using hand tools. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/140625172107-10-wwi-prosthetics-0625-horizontal-gallery.jpg
I’m pretty sure this blog has had similar images before, but Nicolas de Larmessin depicted tradesman as compositions of the tools of their trades. HIs Habitat de Menusier Ebeniste is actually made up of furniture elements as much as tools, but illustrates the point. http://www.britishmuseum.org/collectionimages/AN00516/AN00516489_001_l.jpg
My long term project is to find images like the first that in some way show real world manifestations of the imagined tool/man merger. Literal handtools in may ways. There are several reason for my interest, art theoretical BS that would make most sane people fall asleep if not cry being primary.
The craftsmanship that went into it is also of great interest to me. WW1 era stuff that I have seen has been superbly made and often incorporates leatherwork, metal work, high quality wood work, tailoring and more and I would venture a guess that in some cases (more upper class/officer than working man) it shares some stylistic and technical elements with campaign furniture although in many ways it is a very intimate furniture of necessity.