Pinned
i feel suddenly so talkative guys. if y'all have questions or thoughts u wanna drop, my inbox is always open but especially now — i'm very interested in answering 😌 (actually had a self-appointment half an hour ago lol)
Reblogged
don’t mind me just over here being completely inconsolable over perry lancaster’s cat carvings
Reblogged
José Zanine Caldas, "Canoa" Lounge Chair, 1970s,
Constructed from a used canoe, this armchair rejects modern forms of production, proposing instead a return to tradition. The armchair centers traditional Brazilian forms and woodcarving techniques. Stripped of any ornamentation or superfluidity, the design is centered around the beauty of the reclaimed pequi wood and the sublime simplicity of a traditional canoe form.
Noticeable tool marks allow the work of the craftsman to remain visible. With its focus on material and heritage forms, this piece perfectly encapsulates the designer’s artistic sensibility.
The canoa chair is a classic of Brazilian furniture design. What makes this piece special are the forms and proportions accentuated by Caldas. The piece is a Brazilian master’s deeply personal take on a seminal Brazilian form.
Recycled Pequi wood,
H:43.25 x W:29.50 x D:55.88 (H:110 x W:75 x D:142)
Courtesy: Carpenters Workshop Gallery
Reblogged
When I was little, some Palestinian Christians came to our church.
They didn’t call themselves that, of course, being in a white, right leaning American town in the mid to early 2010s. ‘Fellow Catholics from the Holy Land’ the reader for the week announced them as. After mass there were always announcements, and I remember this Arab man with a dark jacket taking to the pulpit. He and those with him were sitting in the front pew - just ahead of where my family sat each week.
He talked about his home in Bethlehem - though it was a little out of season, Christmas well since passed. He talked about the poverty there, the socioeconomic factors that made life difficult for Palestinians, but this was after a long Irish mass with a long Irish homily and no one was listening that intently. My mom whispered that he didn’t have much of an accent, and my dad whispered back that he agreed - not too difficult to understand.
They were here to sell treasures from the Holy Land. Hand carved olive wood rosaries and prayer beads, nativity sets, reliefs of the last supper. ‘A trade passed down from father to son for generations.’
The most expensive item they had was a lovely crucifix - olive wood inlaid with a hand carved mosaic of mother of pearl, four wells at the end of each piece of the cross containing olive leaves, incense, stones, and soil. It was over $50 - I remember because I begged my mother to let me spend my usual summer stipend of $25 for the next two years, and it still wasn’t quite enough. A few dollars short. But he gave it to me anyway.
For years I almost never took it out of its box - it was too pretty, I was too afraid to break it. I first hung it up after I moved out for college - it always caught the thin winter sunlight in my dorm room and seemed to glow. But it got dusty, and was difficult to clean with all its intricacies, so I put it back in its box. Safe with the dried palm leaves from last year’s Lent.
I saw a post a bit ago, mentioning how hand carved mother of pearl is a more obscure Palestinian art form, and I remembered my crucifix. I remembered the Palestinian Christian man who nobody really listened to at 9 AM on a Sunday while their kids begged to leave and get breakfast.
I counted the individual pieces of mother of pearl today. There’s 89. The cross itself is made of 14 pieces of olive wood perfectly slotted together. The figure of Christ is silver, weathering green with age. I’ve never washed this crucifix, but I probably should. There’s a stamp across the back - ‘Jerusalem’ - and another, fainter (quickly pressed with just too little ink) - ‘Mother of Pearl is Hand Made by Christian Families in the Hole Land.’ That’s not a typo - the stamp has an ‘e’ instead of a ‘y.’ It’s smudged, so maybe there’s an ‘i’ in there, but maybe not.
I looked up the company that made it today. Their website is freshly dated for 2024 in the bottom right hand corner, but they haven’t updated their blog posts since 2022. The posts that are up talk of sites of faith, the art process, and COVID. There’s a noticeable number of spelling and grammar errors, but I don’t really care.
The cross I own is listed as a work from Majdi Alshayeb. I can’t find them on social media, not at first glance. I hope they’re well. I wish they knew how I’ve revered this crucifix more as a work of art than as a symbol of faith. I hope God is with them.
