Woodcarving was my puppy love in the world of
arts and crafts. I started with my first easy projects when I was
traveling by bicycle around Europe in 1986. Every day around noon I took a
break from the heat of the day and I had time to eat, read, take a nap or
play with those cheap chisels that I bought in a couple of spare wood
blocks that I found. But it was only in Jerusalem, at the Monastery St.
Jean du Desert, that I really fell in love with it. I was tired of
traveling, and needed a place to stay for a while, and that was the
perfect place : a beautiful stone building perched in the side of a
mountain 10 kilometers out of Jerusalem. At the moment (1987) the tenants
were the community of La Theophanie, a french melquite order of Byzantine
liturgy attached to the Patriarchate of Damascus.
During the seven
months that I stayed there I was the apprentice of Pere Samuel at
his small atelier where we carved crosses in olive wood from the olive
fields around Bethlehem. He is really an artist and makes beautiful
things, and I got to learn something from him. I haven't seen him since,
and I wish him well.
When I eventually came back to Mexico I continued doing woodcarving,
and I moved out of the religious themes into more personal explorations; I
attended the National Crafts and Folk Arts School in Mexico city for a
number of years and slowly moved also out of woodcarving and started
doing other techniques altogether, mainly jewelry, enameling and sundials.
I haven't done a lot of woodcarving in the last years, but my love for
it is still strong, and whenever I get a chance to try my hand at it again
it is with a lot of pleasure.
This is the entrance door of
my house, view from the
outside. Carved in 4 planks of cedar in a pine frame.
Fantasy Forest
Mahogany
Dimensions :
28 x 90 cms. aprox
( Click on the image to
view it with more detail )
Madonna with child
Mahogany
20 x 95 cms. aprox.
Frame for an Icon
Cedar
30 x 40 cms.
My dear friend, Frere Isaac, asked me to carve a frame
for one of his icons. Isaac, he is really an artist. For the
time being he lives in Monterrey, Mexico, before going back to France,
or Jerusalem, who knows.
This is a relatively recent work, only from last year (2001).
Frame for a Madonna
Mahogany with gold pan leaf
105 x 140 cms.
A lady once asked me to make a frame for the oil painting of
a Peruvian Madonna. I was in a hurry, since I only had a couple of
weeks before flying to France to stay with my girlfriend, and I had
lots of other things to do. But I did manage to make a good job, and
the lady was very happy with the outcome.
The two photos are of the same frame, with and
without the oil painting.
Baroque Clocks
A couple of old
style baroque clocks. Nothing complicated. Mainly exercises in
woodcarving.
Palm Sunday
Tlacuilo tropical
wood
12 x 35 cms.
An exercise in detail, this Palm Sunday is a nice piece of work.
The tlacuilo is a tropical hard wood, and it has a rich color. It
takes time and patience to carve it.
Entrance door
Cedar
115 x 210 cms.
Another take on the
entrance door of my house, from the outside and the inside. I have
this recurrent vision of doves or other birds flying against the sun
and somehow it has managed to appear in several of my artworks. Along
with some hummingbirds dancing in a sea of sunflowers they complete
this celebration of life. The inside is much more relaxed and static :
the sun, moon and stars framed by some intricate Celtic designs. You
could say that the outside is action and movement, the inside is peace
and contemplation. The yin and the yang.
To see my Byzantine and
Ethiopian crosses click here
