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Monday, 26 January 2015

Discover Appreciation For Natural Beauty When You Experience Modern Art Through Reclaimed Wood

By Janine Hughes


For ages, people have been thrifty about reclaiming natural materials to make useful household items. The local environment dictated what kind of resources might be available. Tools and other objects were made out of stones, trees or shells. Once these things were skillfully constructed, creative individuals became inspired to add decorative touches. Preserving cultural history through pictures or signs was common, but often the focus was on keeping simple beauty. Artisans in Chicago, Illinois have claimed this global heritage and applied it to local woods salvaged from generations old buildings to make beautiful home decor and striking modern art.

An understanding of the craftsmanship that is inherit in using this natural material in a completely new and artistic fashion comes from seeing and touching it. Appreciating modern art through reclaimed wood is a visual and tactile process. It is artists who see the ebb and flow of the lines and desire to use them beautifully. Using natural, stained or painted surfaces in combination with varied textures, many unique installations are created.

The Chicago art scene is populated with many craftsman who use a variety of woods as their inspiration. With varied textures their palette, their experimentation with salvaged pieces are filling local studios and galleries. There are handsome furniture pieces and significant works of fine art available for purchase.

It is not unusual to see texture layered upon texture to achieve a large piece. Combinations of paint or stain are used to delineate pattern and line. These are eye catching, yet encourage touch as well.

Slices and chips merge to make mosaics filled with movement and rhythm. The high and low of varied sizes creates rugged yet appealing surfaces. Contrasting or complementary stain and paint colors develop thematic units in large pieces. It takes as much time to assemble these as it would to create a traditional tile version, and the final pieces exhibit similar levels of beauty. The skillful eye is able to see pictures in these small units and the hand of the craftsman is skilled to mass them into something much more important as a whole than they were as single bits of material.

Though it might be tempting to think that woods previously used in buildings could only be used for angular construction, there are many geometric shapes discovered here. The Chicago artisans have become adept at using items from simple barns and furnishings to create items with distinctive circular shapes. The trick is to see how they overlay the bits to come up with something unexpectedly fluid in appearance.

Harvesting materials that are basically cast off from other sites has become lucrative for those who are designing new things in Illinois. The piles of dust, slivers and splinters may have come from a Wisconsin farm or an Illinois property. What could have been a floor or a wall becomes a bed or lamp. Lumber that might have been discarded is being transformed into artistic statements.

Harvesting construction discards results in repetitive geometric patterns. These have the unity of machine work. Assembling hundreds together often develops an entirely different wall surface than has been previously seen.

Seeing new life made from reclaiming recycled bits is part of exciting gallery tours in the city and surrounding areas. Purchasing works at local studios can help to protect the environment. Modern artists are focusing on finding useful ways to create with what was previously old and rejected.




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