Michael Autumn

Category: Diary

  • Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle) – Laser

    Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle) – Laser

    Title: “Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle) – Laser”
    Artist: Michael Autumn
    Medium: Hand-drawing – laser cut & engraved
    Giclée archival laser cut & engraved on premium 6mm AB/AB Italian Panguaneta Poplar plywood (produced responsibly, sustainably, and to the highest of standards), child-safe, moisture-repelling, varnish
    Size: 39.0cm (W) x 55.1cm (H), framed 53.2cm x 69.5cm
    Edition: Limited Edition of 101 – individually signed and numbered, and museum-level (FATG Level 1) :-archival and bespoke framed; and Unlimited Edition, lasered signature, unframed.
    Date: 02/2024
    Options: Available as a puzzle (338 unique pieces actually cut) OR left as a single engraved wooden panel.
    N.B.: The cut-outs in the frame above are to draw attention to the fact that the artwork is a wooden puzzle. – otherwise it could be mistaken for a simple drawing…

    This is the framed limited edition version (museum grade – FATG Level 1) :-

    Framed limited edition

    The art of simply burning wood with light

    This is an attempt to create high quality art using the medium of simply burning wood with light – and nothing else. From the concept of a magnifying glass burning paper, technology has progressed enormously to the modern day laser – where a beam of light can be very finely controlled in terms of intensity and speed of movement. Where sophisticated software can very precisely translate vector- and pixel-based drawings into computer-controlled movement of a laserbeam over your chosen material. But there is a real art to doing this successfully…

    I was hoping to create a mass-produceable wooden laser cut & engraved version of my 40mm thick solid oak “Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle)”

    Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle)

    (see https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/golden-plover-with-egg-jigsaw-puzzle/) because hand-cutting the latter took far too long and caused serious RSI and/or rheumatoid arthritis in my hands/fingers. But in order to achieve the quality I wanted, it turns out (after considerable effort!) that mass-production is simply not possible. It has been a long journey to get to a standard I’m happy with. Along the road I have researched a great deal about materials, wood, lasers (obviously! – but this is a big topic…), and lasering techniques. I have developed some of my own techniques and built some special tools because there were clear limitations in the best techniques, tools, and materials available. Suffice to say, I haven’t come across any individual or company who can produce my designs to the quality I do. But it comes at a significant cost. I can only produce one per day – so in any definition of the phrase mass production, this definitely is not!

    Putting aside the weeks it took me to complete the design (in addition to the weeks it took me to design the original, I spent about another four weeks enhancing it to take advantage of laser capabilities) – and may trials, adjustments, custom tooling, and more trials…

    The design uses multiple lasering and layering techniques – cut-throughs, scoring, light scoring, engraving, deep engraving – which all have to be done in a specific sequence. For example, in places in the design, I have score marks on top of some deep engraved areas – so obviously the deep engraving has to be done before the scoring.


    Detail showing a mix of cut lines, scoring, light scoring, and different types of engraving.

    Also, I use the flattest, smoothest, least porous, best quality plywood I can (and do special preparations to achieve this – see below) – so I can achieve the subtle effects I’m looking for with the minimum of laser power (basically more power equals less precision).

    In this artwork I particularly wanted to reproduce, using light-burning alone, what is for me the three important colours of the golden plover in its magnificent summer plumage: the white fringe to their mainly black bellies, and especially the golden tones of their back – from where they get their name. So what is white in terms of lasering wood? It’s the absence of any burning and scorch marks on very pale, smooth, wood. But the crux of the matter is avoiding getting any discolouration/contamination in these areas – especially as they are sandwiched between very dark areas. It’s very hard to control smoke and scorch marks with lasers. It’s like the challenge of white in watercolour painting – where the white areas are usually the colour of the paper itself, the absence of paint – and in detailed areas masking is often used to exclude surrounding colour seeping into where it is not wanted.

    These are the steps :-

    1. Spray water on the raw plywood panels to raise the grain, let them dry.
    2. Very fine (400 grit) orbit sand the dry plywood, wipe clean.


    3. The plywood panels are then varnished and left to dry for up to three days (depending on time of year – humidity and temperature). This is to minimise the effects of laser burning and makes it easier to clean specific areas afterwards (see step 8).


    4. The plywood panels are then flattened in a special press for several days.


    5. A single plywood sheet is put in a custom-made flat panel laser bed holder (I designed).
    6. The lasering itself takes a little over five hours on my 130W CO2 laser (for a single artwork). I do it in two steps because I find the results are better. Clean the “white” engraved areas (which I want as pale as possible) after engraving the “golden” areas – and before doing the black areas, scoring, and cuts.

      Step 1 – the “golden” areas. The following two images show the “golden” engraved areas before and after cleaning :-



      Step 2 – the black engraving, scoring, and cuts.
    7. After lasering, I do a detailed quality check. Wood, being organic with glued layers, varies from sheet to sheet – and some lasered artwork doesn’t make the grade – or needs fixing in some way.
    8. Then very carefully lighten the brightest/whitest, most important areas (that have been darkened by smoke) with cotton swabs and a mild acid – to make them stand out better. This seems very much like an art-restoration process – like removing the old varnish from an old masterpiece – to restore the original colours! (But I only do certain areas to make them stand out – not the whole thing.) This takes me about an hour and a half. The difference is subtle, but vital to me. It is the difference between a mechanically produced piece of art and a true piece of art I’m happy with.



      The following two images show before and after selected cleaning (notice how the white margins of the golden plovers stand out better after this second cleaning) :-


    9. The artwork then gets a final varnishing and left to dry for up to three days. This is especially important to protect the newly exposed wood surfaces.
    10. I use pyrography to number each piece in the limited edition.


    11. The special display mounts – with a selection of pieces cut of in order to highlight the work is in fact a puzzle – and not simply a drawing – are individually laser cut out of high quality mount board. This takes my precision laser about 40 minutes.


    12. Finally I frame the artwork to using museum materials and techniques. I use anti-reflective, 99% UV filtering, ultra clear museum-grade glass to provide maximum protection to the piece.

    I think the final work shows that lasers can be used to make real art – and are capable of very fine control – as much as lithographic printing, silk-screen printing, wood-block printing, lino-printing. Like any tool, the best results come with experience, knowledge, perseverance, patience, and finding ways around the natural limitations of the medium…

  • Guillemot with Egg (Art Puzzle) – Laser

    Guillemot with Egg (Art Puzzle) – Laser

    Title: “Guillemot with Egg (Art Puzzle) – Laser”
    Artist: Michael Autumn
    Medium: Hand-drawing – laser cut & engraved plywood
    Giclée archival laser cut & engraved on 6mm AB/AB Italian Panguaneta Poplar plywood (produced responsibly, sustainably, and to the highest of standards), child-safe, moisture-repelling, varnish
    Size: 39.0cm (W) x 55.1cm (H), framed 57cm (W) x 73cm (H) x 5cm (D)
    Edition: Limited Edition of 101 – individually signed and numbered, and museum-level (FATG Level 1) :-archival and bespoke framed; and Unlimited Edition, lasered signature, unframed.
    Limited editions come with highly respected, secure and verifiable Hahnemühle Certificates of Authenticity and are publicly trackable here – https://www.hahnemuehle.com/en/digital-fineart/my-art-registry/preview/14596.html
    Date: 02/2024
    Options: Available as a puzzle (314 unique pieces actually cut) OR left as a single engraved wooden panel.

    I was hoping to create a mass-producible wooden laser cut & engraved version of my “Guillemot with Egg (Art Puzzle)” (see https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/guillemot-with-egg-art-puzzle/)

    Guillemot with Egg (Art Puzzle)

    because hand-cutting the latter took far too long and caused serious RSI and/or rheumatoid arthritis in my hands/fingers. But in order to achieve the quality I wanted, it turns out (after much effort) that mass-production is simply not possible. It has been a long journey to get to a standard I’m happy with. Along the road I have researched a great deal about materials, wood, lasers (obviously! – but this is a big topic…), and lasering techniques. I have developed some of my own techniques and built some special tools because there were clear limitations in the best techniques, tools, and materials available. Suffice to say, I haven’t come across any individual or company who can produce my designs to the quality I do. But it comes at a significant cost. I can only produce one per day – so in any definition of the phrase mass production, this definitely is not!

    Putting aside the weeks it took me to complete the design (in addition to the weeks it took me to design the original, I spent about another four weeks enhancing it to take advantage of laser capabilities) – and may trials, adjustments, custom tooling, and more trials…

    The design uses multiple lasering and layering techniques – cut-throughs, scoring, light scoring, engraving, deep engraving – which all have to be done in a specific sequence. For example, in places in the design, I have score marks on top of some deep engraved areas – so obviously the deep engraving has to be done before the scoring.


    Detail showing a mix of cut lines, scoring, light scoring, and different types of engraving.

    Also, I use the flattest, smoothest, least porous, best quality plywood I can (and do special preparations to achieve this – see below) – so I can achieve the subtle effects I’m looking for with the minimum of laser power (basically more power equals less precision).

    These are the steps :-

    1. Spray water on the raw plywood panels to raise the grain, let them dry.
    2. Very fine (400 grit) orbit sand the dry plywood, wipe clean.


    3. The plywood panels are then varnished and left to dry for up to three days (depending on time of year – humidity and temperature). This is to minimise the effects of laser burning and makes it easier to clean specific areas afterwards (see step 8).


    4. The plywood panels are then flattened in a special press for several days.


    5. A single plywood sheet is put in a custom-made flat panel laser bed holder (I designed).
    6. The lasering itself takes a little over seven hours on my 130W CO2 laser (for a single artwork).
    7. After lasering, I do a detailed quality check. Wood, being organic with glued layers, varies from sheet to sheet – and some lasered artwork doesn’t make the grade – or needs fixing in some way.
    8. Then very carefully lighten the brightest/whitest, most important areas (that have been darkened by smoke) with cotton swabs and a mild acid – to make them stand out better. This seems very much like an art-restoration process – like removing the old varnish from an old masterpiece – to restore the original colours! (But I only do certain areas to make them stand out – not the whole thing.) This takes me about an hour and a half. The difference is subtle, but vital to me. It is the difference between a mechanically produced piece of art and a true piece of art I’m happy with.



      The following two images show before and after the white masking has been removed (notice how the white bellies of the guillemots stand out better after cleaning, and the eye of the main bird) :-




      The following image shows detail of a part-de-masked area (compare the guillemot bellies on the bottom and middle to those on the top row) :-


    9. The artwork then gets a final varnishing and left to dry for up to three days. This is especially important to protect the newly exposed wood surfaces.
    10. I use pyrography to number each piece in the limited edition.


    11. The special display mounts – with a selection of pieces cut of in order to highlight the work is in fact a puzzle – and not simply a drawing – are individually laser cut out of high quality mount board. This takes my precision laser about 40 minutes.


    12. Finally I frame the artwork to using museum materials and techniques. I use anti-reflective, 99% UV filtering, ultra clear museum-grade glass to provide maximum protection to the piece.

    I think the final work shows that lasers can be used to make real art – and are capable of very fine control – as much as lithographic printing, silk-screen printing, wood-block printing, lino-printing. Like any tool, the best results come with experience, knowledge, perseverance, patience, and finding ways around the natural limitations of the medium…

    Just to give you an artist’s insight into this piece, a video of me talking about a very similar artwork to this (“Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle) – Laser”) and the making of it can be seen on YouTube :-

    – with the main difference being this one takes twice as long to laser, and three times as long to remove the masking tape.

  • Golden Plover with Egg (floral map)

    Golden Plover with Egg (floral map)

    (Very low resolution for copyright reasons)

    Title: “Golden Plover with Egg (floral map)”
    Artist: Michael Autumn
    Medium: Hand-drawing with digital gouache
    Giclée archival print on fine 100% cotton canvas (matt)
    Hahnemühle Art Canvas Smooth 370gsm + Hahnemühle UV protection matt varnish
    Size: 51″ (W) x 36″ (H), stretched canvas 38″ (W) x 53″ (H)
    Edition: Limited Edition of 101
    Authenticity: Hand-signed (front, bottom, far right on white canvas border) with graphite pencil (varnished over with same UV-protective matt varnish as whole) and titled (front, bottom, centre on white canvas border)
    Date: 02/2024

    Just to give an idea of the size the artwork…

    TL:DR

    This artwork is an homage to visual perception – it’s about how we detect meaning from the millions of individually coloured photons entering our eyes – and how I, as an artist, can trick you into seeing what I want you to see.

    Golden Plover with Egg (floral map) is the simple colouring-in (albeit very carefully selected and juxtaposed colours) of a flat line drawing I did previously of this art puzzle design (see photo below and this post: Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle)).

    Golden Plover with Egg (Art Puzzle)

    I used this technique to regularly check for line breaks (where there shouldn’t be any), and to get a better view of the shapes of the individual pieces I was designing – amid a sprawling mesh of simple black thin lines on a white background. This got me to thinking about the difference between the dumb mechanical process of colouring a shape (of a flood fill) and true animal (human) understanding…

    Promo video

    This is part of my floral map series. See Guillemot with Egg (floral map) for details.

  • Guillemot with Egg (floral map)

    Guillemot with Egg (floral map)

    (Very low resolution for copyright reasons)

    Title: “Guillemot with Egg (floral map)”
    Artist: Michael Autumn
    Medium: Hand-drawing with digital gouache
    Giclée archival print on fine 100% cotton canvas (matt)
    Hahnemühle Art Canvas Smooth 370gsm + Hahnemühle UV protection matt varnish
    Size: 36″ (W) x 50.9″ (H), canvas stretcher 38″ (W) x 53″ (H)
    Edition: Limited Edition of 101
    Authenticity: Hand-signed (front, bottom, far right on white canvas border) with graphite pencil (varnished over with same UV-protective matt varnish as whole) and titled (front, bottom, centre on white canvas border)
    Date: 02/2024

    Just to give an idea of the size the artwork…

    TL;DR

    This artwork is an homage to visual perception – it’s about how we detect meaning from the millions of individually coloured photons entering our eyes – and how I, as an artist, can trick you into seeing what I want you to see.

    Guillemot with Egg (floral map) is the simple colouring-in (albeit very carefully selected and juxtaposed colours) of a flat line drawing I did previously of this art puzzle design (see photo of that artwork below and this post: Guillemot with Egg (Art Puzzle)).

    Guillemot with Egg (Art Puzzle)

    I used this technique to regularly check for line breaks (where there shouldn’t be any), and to get a better view of the shapes of the individual pieces I was designing – amid a sprawling mesh of simple black thin lines on a white background. This got me to thinking about the difference between the dumb mechanical process of colouring a shape (of a flood fill) and true animal (human) understanding…

    The story behind this artwork is part intentional, part serendipity, and partly the indirect fruits of some non-trivial computer programming I did many, many, moons ago…

    I am immensely impressed, and deeply bewildered, by our ability to visually perceive our environment. As you might know, typical adult human beings have about six million cones in our eyes to effectively detect pixels of coloured light (photons) in daylight (rods are used in low-light/dark conditions). Each detected pixel of light is to all intents and purposes completely independent of each other – and the eye’s cones are simple colour detectors of light coming into the eye – not in themselves capable of making any sense of the totality of what the all the other cones are measuring – they simply pass what they individually detect to the brain (via the optic nerve). It takes one of the most impressive and complex machines in the universe – a brain – to interpret these patchworks of colour.

    The brain compares all the pixels together, detects edge boundaries, and uses its vast database of previously classified images (and parts thereof) to try to understand the current image. And by understanding the image I mean recognising the individual objects within it. Without the aid of a vast memory and very sophisticated pattern-recognition, reinforcement, and continuous learning – making sense of what we see would be impossible – and we simply wouldn’t survive. Why? Because we wouldn’t be able to find food and water, avoid danger, and move about pursuing our instinctive goals – build and maintain a shelter, avoid various dangers, find a mate, reproduce, etc… That’s not to say that the brain never gets things wrong. In fact, our brain’s insatiable appetite to pattern-match and classify what it “sees” is so strong that it is sometimes fooled into “seeing” things which aren’t there… Anyone ever seen elephant-shaped clouds…?

    Since about 2021, I have been exploring the physical and metaphorical world of puzzles – particularly those in Nature: things that are camouflaged, paradoxical, ambiguous, double-entendre, things that are not what they seem. I have been expressing this through the medium of actual visual puzzles – jigsaw puzzles with a twist, and a completely different purpose – the purpose of expressing ideas rather than a challenging pastime. I call them art puzzles.

    I start by hand-drawing a full size completely imaginary, but plausible, nature design of a main bird in an appropriate landscape (which takes me a long time – by far the bulk of the total), and then I physically cut out the puzzle (usually in wood). While designing the artwork for these intricate puzzles – with an eye for structurally interlocking pieces (which are often heavily disguised) – I periodically check that the cut lines all work – i.e. that there are no gaps where there shouldn’t be any, and all the pieces cut out cleanly (i.e. not stuck together anywhere).

    This checking is important because, while I cut the pieces by hand for the first three years (and could compensate for any imperfections in the drawings), I have an eye on getting them cut by a computer-controlled machine – waterjet, laser, or some other technology – so I have to make the drawings “perfect”. As many of you will know, if you provide instructions to humans, you can get away with some imperfections and inaccuracies because an intelligent human being is likely to still achieve the correct result – compensating for your mistakes and imperfect measurements/instructions – because they can guess at your intentions. But most of you will also know that you can’t get away with anything when a computerised mechanical machine does the work: it will do exactly what it is told – no more, no less – because it has no notion of what it is supposed to do.

    Zooming in on a complex detailed drawing and looking for gaps of where lines don’t join where they should – is a very tedious, long-winded, task – and it’s difficult to be certain you’ve properly checked everywhere. So a while back I got the idea of flood-filling the areas to see if there are any leaks. For those of you not familiar with the term, flood-filling is an automated way of filling an area of colour – of any complexity – with a new colour. It is not filling the whole image with colour – that isn’t much use. It fills/puts the new colour everywhere that is the same colour as the original point (pixel) colour – and here is the subtle bit – the colour has to be connected to the original point. To illustrate this, here is a sequence of pictures showing a small detail of my gap-finding process :-

    Detail of the drawing with no gaps

    Detail of the drawing with a small gap – can you see it…?

    Detail of the drawing with red arrow showing a small gap

    Detail of the drawing with flood fill going through the gap

    Detail of the drawing with flood fill confirming gap fixed

    Detail of the drawing with various flood fills showing good gap integrity

    So where does the computer programming part come in – that I mentioned in the introduction? Well, many, many, moons ago – when personal computers were just emerging, I started a career which involved creatively using IT to help people with special needs – recreation, communication, education, etc… One of the most rewarding projects I took on was to design an art program that would enable people who could reliably press one, two, or three buttons with any part of their body – to draw and paint on the computer – and print out their colourful creations. (I was an artist long before I got involved in computing, and so this was particularly interesting to me.) My main customer and inspiration for the program at the time was a very talented mouth-artist, called Mary, whom I was very ambitious for. I wanted to provide for every feature she asked for – in addition to those I thought should be there. One day while doing quite a complex design with the program, Mary asked if it was possible to change the colour of part of her picture. It wasn’t at the time, but I set about designing the feature. To my knowledge it hadn’t been done before, and it turned out to be quite challenging (it took me about a month to crack it). These days it’s common in art programs, and is something most people take for granted. But solving the problem from scratch was very satisfying and gave me insights to its many possibilities (including solving any 2D line-drawn maze of any complexity)…

    The serendipitous aspect of this artwork lies in when I realised that the various flood fill tests I was doing during the course of designing the original art puzzle – were actually quite appealing in their own right. While I was only using a few simple random colours for my tests, I thought that with a harmoniously selected floral colour pallet and careful colour juxtapositions, I could make a really attractive design… I parked the idea at the time because I was engrossed with my original intention, but I did come back to it this year. It took quite a long time to arrive at the final design, and printing the colours correctly (i.e. as I envisioned and designed them on my computer) was really tricky (as usual!). Printed on the best available printer with the most archival inks. Best UV protection matt varnish.

    I really like it, and it’s like nothing I’ve seen before…

  • Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) (You Are What You Eat) – laminated

    Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) (You Are What You Eat) – laminated

    Title: “Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) (You Are What You Eat)” – laminated
    Artist: Michael Autumn
    Life-sized part-handmade, part laser-cut & engraved, two-sided, laminated plywood art puzzle (Limited Edition of 11)

    Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) – Laminated: Full image – front

    Size: 20cm (W) x 30cm (H) x 4cm (depth) @ 0.65kg weight
    Medium: 7 laminated layers of 6mm AB/AB Italian Panguaneta Poplar plywood + acrylic eyes.
    Date: 2023
    Rear of the laminated version

    Long-eared Owl – Laminated

    This is a partly hand-cut and finished, partly laser-cut & engraved, two-sided, laminated plywood version of my original solid oak, hand-cut & engraved version of “Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) (You Are What You Eat)” (see https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2023/05/03/long-eared-owl-art-puzzle-you-are-what-you-eat/).

    This is the culmination of three years of trying to find an engineering solution to making the incredibly intricate thick oak art puzzles I used to very laboriously (and painstakingly!) cut by hand using an electronic scroll (fret) saw. I tried waterjet cutting (that blasts away intricate areas and requires continuous cuts – totally wrong!). I bought and tried CNC routing (for about six months) with the smallest router bits available – but the bits that had the required diameter (1/32″) kept breaking and couldn’t reliably cut the depth required. And it require cutting at such small depths at each pass that even if the router bits didn’t keep breaking (and the whole job having to be restarted!) then it would have taken literally weeks to complete a single design!

    The problem with conventional laser cutting (which I spent the best part of a year trying – with three different bought lasers) is that the deeper the material is, the more power is required – and therefore the wider the laser beam is. This results in an unacceptably wide kerf – gap between cuts. The kerf (gap) I managed by scroll-sawing – was about 0.7mm – which is the minimum I can accept. A laser that can cut through 42mm of plywood would ordinarily have a kerf of well over 1mm. So that is out of the question.

    I pondered this dilemma for months, and tried various ideas – none of which worked. Eventually I can up with the idea of not trying to cut such thick material all at once – but to cut it much more finely in several thin layers – and then bond them together. This has (had) a number of issues and challenges in and of itself, however, I’m extremely please and relieved that I worked out solutions to the problems. And when I first produced the first fully acceptable complete version I was on cloud nine for several days…!

    Suffice to say that the part hand-, part laser-, cut laminated version of my Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle), is far more accurate, better fitting, and more reproducible – without causing RSI/hand arthritis! Having said all that, it takes about the same amount of time in total as hand-cutting(!) – about a week for each edition – because of all the part-laser cutting of multiple layers, doing the rear design – and quite a lot hand-finishing. But at least if is much less of a strain on my hands – and infinitely less daunting…!

    “Art Puzzle” series

    At the risk of stating the obvious, this work is part of my Art Puzzle series. For readers interested, further details can be found at the originating work’s post @ https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/guillemot-with-egg-art-puzzle/

    Finished photos & videos

    Promo Animation
    Disassembling
    Comparing the completely hand-made, solid oak, version – with the part hand, part lasered, laminated, version

  • Long-eared Owl with Oak Foliage (Art Puzzle)

    Long-eared Owl with Oak Foliage (Art Puzzle)

    Title: “Long-eared Owl with Oak Foliage (Art Puzzle)”

    Artist: Michael Autumn

    The complete framed art jigsaw puzzle with some pieces set to the side - to highlight that this is a jigsaw puzzle as well as being a detailed drawing piece of art.

    Available to purchase on Etsy

    Medium: Hand-drawing – laser cut & engraved premium 3mm AB/AB Italian Panguaneta Poplar plywood
    Size: 48cm (H) x 38cm (W) (including the frame)
    Date: 2023
    Country: UK

    Description: The idea behind this artwork was to have a tactile, life-sized, long-eared owl, and to toy with the idea – “You are what you eat”. Long-eared owls are ferocious predators (as are all owls) – and will basically eat anything that moves that is smaller than them. They often swallow their prey whole, and regurgitate a large pellet of the undigestible parts – such as bones, teeth, hair, feathers. Indeed, examining their pellets is how ornithologists know so much about what they eat.

    This is a very high (in the case of the unlimited edition), and extremely high (in the case of the limited edition), quality laser-cut “art” jigsaw puzzle – directly cut (and scored) from an original digital hand-drawing. The design is a specially modified drawing of his original hand-cut thick solid oak artwork entitled “Long-eared Owl (Jigsaw Puzzle) (You are what you eat)” (2022) (see https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2023/05/03/long-eared-owl-jigsaw-puzzle-you-are-what-you-eat/ and https://youtu.be/jWsK6TFEevk).

    Jigsaw Puzzle?

    This is not a jigsaw puzzle in the conventional sense of the word: it is not simply a print stuck on card or wood – and cut into puzzle pieces – where the jigsaw puzzle was never envisioned by the artist (or photographer). Most jigsaw puzzles are a commercial after-design afterthought. However, this artwork was designed from the outset, and from the ground up, as a jigsaw puzzle. This is an artwork where every single line drawn was specifically designed to be cut as interlocking puzzle pieces. This is not a cut-up picture – there are only completely intentional cuts/joints – to make a work of art.

    The “art” side of this artwork is where I have designed the owl to show that it is literally made of many of the wide variety of creatures that it eats. I used the simple jigsaw-puzzle you-are-what-you-eat metaphor to illustrate this puzzling (pun intended!) transformation of lots of small animals making up an owl. My hope is that interacting with art like this will make you think more about the message in it than if it was a normal drawing or painting…

    This is a line drawing – where the strong lines are cut through the wood (to form the jigsaw puzzle pieces), and the weaker lines are scored and engraved on to the surface of the wood (to add extra detail) – by the use of a very high quality laser.

    This laser-cut artwork has considerable extra detail compared to the aforementioned artwork, and has a rich oak foliage background – to take full advantage of the extra cutting and scoring precision achievable with a very high quality laser – compared to hand-cutting and scoring. Also I wanted to produce much more affordable art – compared to my very laborious (and strenuous!), hand-cut, hand-finished, original artworks.

    Laser-cut

    This is not ordinary laser cutting: this is laser-cutting pushed to its limits. The usual flaws of laser cutting – scorching, burn marks, unsharp, brittle and crumbling edges, poor detail – might be acceptable to most people, but wasn’t acceptable to me – a self-confessed perfectionist with OCD! So over several months I exhaustedly researched the problems, tried various solutions, found some to be too labour intensive, thought outside the box, made a special tool, and eventually came up with a workflow of pre-, and post-, production, specially selected materials, and using special techniques. Now I’m very happy with the results: near perfection and consistency – I think it’s the best you are likely to see – or feel…

    Editions: Available in both limited and unlimited editions (see respectively named sections below).

    Material: finest quality 3mm hardwood plywood

    • sustainably produced wood
    • specially treated (protected against frequent handling, moisture, water spills, saliva, dirt)
      • non-cracking, non-peeling, non-flaking
      • (the limited edition has a higher specification – see “Limited Edition” section below)

    Number of pieces in puzzle: 156

    Jigsaw puzzle size: 297mm (H) x 210mm (W)

    Size with extended mat (for unlimited editions): 400mm (H) x 300mm (W)

    Custom Frame size (available for unlimited editions): 480mm (H) x 380mm (W) x 47mm (D)

    N.B. Not suitable for young children due to the very small size of some of the pieces (the smallest are approximately 10mm x 5mm), however, the varnish meets child safety standards (EN 71.3).

    Limited Edition

    Details of the edition are hand-written by the artist in pencil on the special mat below the artwork in the following form :-

    Edition number (left), title of artwork & year (middle), signature (right).

    Edition Size: 101

    Edition numbering format: #[space][edition number]/[edition size] – e.g. “# 23/101” (the “#” is to prevent any additional digits being added to the left).

    While made from the same wood, the limited edition differ from the unlimited edition in the following important ways :-

    Comparing pieces from unlimited (left) and limited (right)
    • Are lighter in colour (with staining) so that the design stands out more clearly.
    • The wood is specially treated for maximum UV protection, to minimise colour change, and to virtually eliminate yellowing, darkening, and radiation damage that normally occurs in unprotected wood after many years.
    • Are cut with a much finer laser to virtually eliminate the gap between pieces and to give even tighter joints than the unlimited edition. The laser cutting takes three times longer than normal – taking over three hours for each artwork.
    • They come with the outer perimeter wood (known as the “mat”) from which they were cut – with the design bleeding 2mm into it – making a natural-looking border. The mat is intended to be framed, and it provides space for the all-important hand-written edition number, the work title, the year, and the artist’s signature.
    • Available with the optional special bespoke museum-grade archival frame. Not everyone is concerned about protecting their investment and their art staying in excellent condition for hundreds of years – or they possibly are, but don’t want to spend the extra money on this – which is why the special framing offered is optional. The limited edition art jigsaw puzzle can be purchased unframed (it still comes with the aforementioned mat).

      The frame has been specially designed and made by me. I am an experienced framer (and general carpenter/joiner), but I don’t relish framing! I only make special frames because unfortunately some of the types of frames I want can’t be made by most professional framers – they can need special joints, special and very exacting moulding, interlocking double frames with very precise features.

      Most art is only for show – it is not meant to be touched at all – and is shielded behind a completely sealed frame and/or covered in layers of varnish. The custom frame made for this artwork is very special because I wanted the ability for the artwork to be hung on the wall – with all the pieces remaining in place(!) – whilst also being easily opened – so that the jigsaw puzzle can actually be solved as often as desired. How to achieve this, whilst at the same time providing the maximum level of protection so that the artwork lasts hundreds of years…? The answer was to make a two- part museum-grade frame – where one part fits snugly inside the other. The front (outer) part has the highest quality, clearest, anti-reflective, museum glass – that virtually eliminates all harmful UV radiation and naturally protects the artwork from dirt, dust, etc. The back (inner) part holds the mat of the artwork jigsaw puzzle completely flat to a museum-grade, acid-neutral, non-VOC, non-staining, 100% cotton rag mount board – which in turn is mounted on a very thick, very rigid, acid-free, non-VOC, non-staining, backing board – all using museum-grade adhesives, hinges, and tapes. The front (outer) frame is made from a customised precision moulding – because the required specifications are such that it is not available off-the-shelf.

      The end result is a fabulous frame “sandwich” that can be put on the wall – like normal framed artwork – and can be taken down any time so you can attempt to solve it. The front part can easily be lifted off (by sliding open the clasps at the back), and the jigsaw puzzle pieces can be tipped out – ready to be solved. Afterwards, the front can be replaced, the clasps at the back closed, and the whole frame can be hung back on the wall.

      This frame design is museum grade in all but one inevitable respect: it is designed to be opened – and is therefore not completely and permanently sealed. This is a very minor concession – that is obviously required for the ability to solve the jigsaw puzzle as often as required. However, obviously it can very easily be sealed at the back (preferably with readily available archival backing tape) if required – needing no special tools or skill. When sealed at the back like this, it would be 100% museum grade. But even without being sealed, it is 99% museum grade – and should last in pristine condition for hundreds of years.

    Unlimited Edition

    The unlimited edition is a very high quality laser-cut wooden product – probably the highest quality wooden jigsaw puzzle available anywhere – as of 2023 (apart from the limited edition version of course). These are not mass-produced: they are individually produced on a very fine laser – taking over an hour each – and the post-production is individually inspected and counted to guarantee quality control. The unlimited edition is not available framed.

  • Resuming My Art Journey…

    It’s been a really long journey, I got lost in the blackest wilderness for a very long time, but I’m finally back on the right track – heading in my chosen direction… Art is not something where you can say you’ve achieved your goal: it’s the exploratory journey that is the pleasure and ambition. Yes, we may enjoy some wonderful sights and places along the way, but there is no particular destination…

    When I left university – after failing in my academic ambitions (principally due to a complete change in interests from economics to philosophy and psychology – but not being allowed to change course) – I tried to make a living from my life-long creative passion – art. But I had no capital or support, and prostituted myself – doing mundane commissions and speculative commercial work – for a full year. I decided this extremely insecure, hand-to-mouth, existence, was no life for me, and I promised myself I would never financially rely on art again – or prostitute my art again – instead I would focus on doing the kind of art I wanted to do – for myself (in the first instance)…

    After the brief encounter with “professional art” I stumbled into computing (IT) – something that came very naturally to me (I got engrossed with programming at university), and I thrived on it. In a very real sense computer programming is the complete opposite to art: programming is mostly convergent and objective thinking to solve very specific, precise, objective, mathematical and logical problems – using nothing but a Qwerty keyboard and VDU – and producing computer code – but it has no direct permanent artifacts. Whereas art is mostly divergent and subjective thinking – and a lot of manual dexterity and very skilled manipulation of physical materials – and is not trying to solve any problems at all – it is most often purely for beauty’s sake. And an artifact is always the end result.

    During a long career in IT, I continued art (and photography – once I could afford it) on my own terms… (In the early years I took out – what was for me – a huge loan to buy professional photographic equipment – that cost about a year’s average salary.) I started entirely with analogue art and photographic equipment, and later evolved with the digital revolutions in both. My IT background helped considerably in this regard, and I was able to do more and more exciting things –making creative use of the extensive opportunities digital technology offered…

    Eighteen years ago (at the time of writing this) I got married, and my wife and I bought a house together – with the main ambition being to develop our art interests and to start earning money from it (on own terms). I built a large studio (from a large barn), a workshop, a framing workshop, and a digital office. I converted a van for the safe transport of large framed glazed artworks. I was able to produce digital art to museum archival standards, and submitted work to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions – and sold some limited edition work at a good price. Things started to look up.

    But no sooner had I started to get established, and it all collapsed due to a most heinous, psychopathic, sociopathic, attack by my insecure, irrationally and intensely jealous, (ex-)wife… The art-making complex I created, all my artworks, every photograph I have ever taken, every print I have ever made – over decades – have all gone. But that was as nothing compared to the unfathomable pain of not seeing the children, feeling their pain and confusion of not seeing me; a catastrophic breakdown, the utter terror, despair, hopelessness, blackness, I suffered – and suffer still to this day – thirteen years on… Indeed, if it were not for my son – and wanting him to learn the truth of what happened to him (and me) some day (when he becomes an adult?) – I would not be here now…

    Some very intelligent women psychopaths (like Cleopatra and Livia Drusilla – and my ex), being physically weaker, are sociopaths as well – and often resort to coldly and completely selfishly manipulating others to achieve their nefarious ends – completely oblivious to the harm and pain they inflict along the way. This can magnify their powers enormously. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that such women are invariably very intelligent because they have to be to – to pull the wool over so many people’s eyes – often for years… They lead a web of lies and deceit that has to be very convincingly and consistently acted out – and so they have to be great actresses as well…

    Years of depression and PTSD followed (I will never be the person I was, but I struggle on), with no creative output whatsoever for years. Most men suffer trauma like this on their own. For me, talking about it only made me feel worse. So-called “professionals”– who’ve probably never dealt with such cases before – asking naïve questions – is no help whatsoever. They are of the simple-mindedness of thinking that talking about pain helps – when in fact it doesn’t: it makes you feel worse. Re-living trauma is not any help for trauma…!

    I could have produced some of the most melancholic and distressing art imaginable, but I hate depressive and dark art, and I chose not to inflict that on the world… Art for me always has been, and always will be, something positive and beautiful – something to bring light and joy into people’s lives, and preferably thought-provoking…

    I look back now on those darkest years and wonder where the time went. I frequently see TV programmes, films, music, and sport from this period – but don’t remember anything about them – as if they happened before I was born – or I was in a coma all that time. For example, I recently (this late summer 2023) saw cricket documentaries about England winning the Ashes in 2015 and the world cup in 2019. I am a very keen follower of cricket (and played a huge amount in my youth: played for four different teams each week, and captained the school team), but I have absolutely no recollection of either of these momentous achievements…!

    Such trauma, as I have suffered, either kills you – or you very slowly learn to live with it and slowly turn you attention to other things. Very slowly the blackness gives way to light. Very gradually the light started to come back into my life. IT has been good to me (and hopefully I to it), and it has many synergies in art and photography that I have been keen to explore. Among other things, IT has given me the financial opportunity to re-assess my life and prioritise what is important to me. Art is important to me, but I don’t want to be financially dependent on it. So in late 2021 (and largely due to melancholia) I decided to liquidate my assets, downsize, and find a suitable home in Scotland – with good art workshop/studio potential, close to the mountains, sea, and rivers (which I love) – and concentrate on art… Yes, I’d like to get my art “out there”, and sell non-originals – but I don’t want to be financially dependent on it…

    I’m finally getting back unto my stride. I’ve built a reasonably sized workshop and studio (adapted from an empty outbuilding) and fully equipped it. I’ve had the budget to buy and try just about everything I’ve wanted, and have fully resumed my art journey. This time I have seen to it that there will be no disruptions…

  • Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) (You Are What You Eat)

    Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) (You Are What You Eat)

    Title: “Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle) (You Are What You Eat)”
    Artist: Michael Autumn
    Life-sized handmade solid oak jigsaw puzzle (Limited Edition of 7)

    Long-eared Owl (Art Puzzle): Full image
    Size: 20cm (W) x 30cm (H) x 4cm (depth) @ 1.5kg weight
    Medium: Solid European Oak, hand-cut, hand-engraved, hand-carved, art puzzle + acrylic eyes.
    Date: 2022

    Long-eared Owl

    The story behind this art piece was to have a free-standing, tactile, life-sized long-eared owl, and to toy with the idea – “You are what you eat“. These birds are ferocious predators (as are all owls) – and will basically eat anything that moves that is smaller than them. They often swallow their prey whole, and regurgitate a large pellet of the undigestible parts – such as bones, teeth, hair, feathers. Indeed, examining their pellets is how ornithologists know so much about what they eat.

    I often think about predator-prey relationships – perhaps being a veggie has something to do with this… All animals have to get their energy and material they are made of by consuming specific things – protiens, carbohydrates, and fats. Herbivores obviously get this material directly and indirectly from plants – which is often widely available (they don’t usually eat fats directly, but make them from carbohydrates). However, they usually have to eat a lot of plant material in relation to their size because it is a low concentrated source of food – requiring long, slow, complex digestion. Predators usually don’t eat plants – instead they prefer much more concentrated and complex food in the form of other animals.

    I have designed the owl to show that it is literally made of many of the wide variety of creatures that it eats. From the moment of conception – where it starts as a single egg – it literally takes parts of smaller animals – and its amazing body chemistry converts them into material to make (and maintain) it’s growing body – and energy. I used the simple jigsaw-puzzle you-are-what-you-eat metaphor to illustrate this puzzling (pun intended!) transformation of lots of small animals making up an owl.

    Owls typically eat 2-4 mice-sized animals per day – so about a thousand a year. Without owls, goodness know how many mice, moles, voles, rats, small birds, newts, etc. there would be…!

    (I have to confess this was originally intended to be a tawny owl! I haven’t been lucky enough to actually see a wild long-eared owl, and as I got a long way into designing this piece I felt it would look better with ears – and, of course, a tawny owl doesn’t have visible “ears“… So I thought, okay, I’ll change it to a long-eared owl – they have great “ears” (well they look like ears, but they’re actually not – they’re just tufts of feathers!). The two species are quite similar in many respects – so the change was easy!)

    “Art Puzzle” series

    At the risk of stating the obvious, this work is part of my Art Puzzle series. For readers interested, further details can be found at the originating work’s post @ https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/guillemot-with-egg-art-puzzle/

    “Limited Edition” of 7

    The phrase limited edition in this case is a bit of a misnomer. These are all individually handmade by me from my original design. I really wish there was, but there is no mechanical or chemical process I know of by which these can be reproduced – like screen printing, lithographs, card puzzles (using a die and jigsaw press), etc. (for more details please see the aforementioned post).

    Working photos

    Finished photos

  • Tawny Owl with Egg (Art Puzzle)

    Tawny Owl with Egg (Art Puzzle)

    Title: “Tawny Owl with Egg (Art Puzzle)”

    Life-sized handmade solid oak art puzzle (Limited Edition of 7)

    Tawny Owl with Egg (Art Puzzle): Full image
    Size: 50cm (W) x 82cm (H) x 8cm (depth) @ 20kg weight
    Medium: A single piece of waney-edged European Oak, hand-cut, hand-engraved, art puzzle
    with inset full-size replica tawny owl egg and acrylic eyes.
    Date: 2023

    First and foremost I want to mention that the eggs used in my work are not real – for obvious ethical reasons (it is also illegal to take wild birds eggs). They are life-size replicas made of a plaster resin composite and hand-painted – not by me, but by a very reputable leading replica birds eggs maker.

    Tawny Owl

    Following on from Guillemot with Egg (Jigsaw Puzzle) (see https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/guillemot-with-egg-art-puzzle/), I thought I would pay homage to another favourite bird of mine – the Tawny Owl (Strix aluco). These, like all owls, are very mysterious – especially the noctornal ones (which tawnies are) – because they do things the opposite to us: they sleep/rest during the daylight, and come out – and hunt – at night. They are supremely designed and adapted to this lifestyle: they have excellent hearing and eyesight, they fly almost silently, and their hunting strategy is to hunt in the darkness – when other small nocturnal animals think it’s safe to come out…!

    Mice, voles, shrews, moles – in fact any small rodent up to the size of a rat – are largely nocternal to avoid daylight predators – like kestrels, buzzards, merlin, sparrowhawks. But while rummaging for food and going about their normal lives – in what they think is the relative safety of darkness – a tawny owl – alerted to their presence by their quiet, but inevitable, sounds – can swoop undetected near to the unwitting little creatures. From close by the tawny can watch their prey’s every move – until they decide to pounce, crush and puncture them with their razor-sharp tallons – and then invariably swallow them whole…

    Little birds could be roosting or sleeping in trees or bushes, but if they make any sounds in their sleep – even just quietly snooring or sleep-calling/singing – they are easy game for these owls… Frogs, toads, newts – in fact any small reptile – making any kind of sound at night – are likely to court the deadly attention of a tawny owl. Even fish splashing about at the water’s surface, or in the shallows, are fair game for these owls…

    Suffice to say that if it is small and it makes a noise, it is on the menu…! So I thought I would play with this idea and illustrate as many of the small creatures tawny owls eat – as jumbled up jigsaw pieces surrounding the main protagonist. The whole design slightly resembles a huge regurgitated pellet of the tawny owl, and the small prey animals are all jumbled up – like fragments in a pellet.

    I like art in the form of a jigsaw puzzle because it is interactive, and by careful design of the shapes and carving on the pieces, I can get the puzzle-solver to look at, and think very carefully about, them – in a way that is simply not possible with non-interactive art. Indeed, someone could look at a piece of art like this and not even notice the small creatures surrounding the main owl – let alone have any understanding why they are there – and why these particular animals. However, trying to solve a puzzle like this is a very different matter – they will definitely think more about what it is they are looking at…!

    I have deliberately made the jigsaw puzzle very subtle because Nature is very subtle. These creatures are very difficult to see because of their camouflage and because they mainly come out at night – and it is precisely because they are so difficult to see that the owls rely on the noise they make to home in on them… The puzzle metaphor lets me toy with the idea that these small creatures think they are invisible – or out of harm’s way – but to a tawny owl, in the dead calm of night, their sounds makes them highly visible…

    Owls typically eat 2-4 mice-sized animals per day – so about a thousand a year. Without owls, goodness know how many mice, moles, voles, rats, small birds, newts, etc. there would be…! If all the creatures a tawny own ate over the course of its lifetime were put into a 30cm diameter (about the width of this jigsaw puzzle) very tall clear tube – I wonder how high the pile of eaten animals would be…

    Close-up of the life-sized tawny owl with replica egg

    Some of the art puzzle pieces laid out

    “Art Puzzle” series

    At the risk of stating the obvious, this work is part of my Art Puzzle series. For readers interested, further details can be found at the originating work’s post @ https://michaelautumn.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/guillemot-with-egg-art-puzzle/

    “Limited Edition” of 7

    The phrase limited edition in this case is a bit of a misnomer. These are all individually handmade by me from my original design. I really wish there was, but there is no mechanical or chemical process I know of by which these can be reproduced – like screen printing, lithographs, card puzzles (using a die and jigsaw press), etc. (for more details please see the aforementioned post).


    Working-on photos


    Finished photos

  • Oak Tree (Art Puzzle)

    Oak Tree (Art Puzzle)

    Title: “Oak Tree (Art Puzzle)”
    Medium: Hand-drawn, hand-cut and engraved solid European Oak art puzzle (Limited Edition of 7).
    Size: 60cm (H) x 61cm (W) x 4.4cm (depth) @ 11.8kg weight
    Date: 2022

    It started out as a clock!

    I can’t remember why, but this started out as a design for a clock! But after a short while I decided I should make a clock jigsaw puzzle and an oak tree jigsaw puzzle – as completely separate works.

    My Favourite Tree

    The oak (English Oak – Quercus robur) – is probably my favourite English tree, and I’ve wanted for many years to pay homage to them. I’ve travelled quite a bit over the UK, and often it has been to get somewhere lovely by sunrise – or close to it – and often I’ve driven home at sundown – because I don’t particularly like driving in the dark (for the simple reason I can’t see anything). So I have seen a lot of sun rises and sunsets (sometimes both in the same day) – and the visions that stand out most in my memory are oak trees with the sun rising or setting behind them. Many an oak I have seen with blood red skies, blazing yellow and orange skies, gloomy slate skies, fresh cold blue skies, stiflingly hot blue skies.

    A great irony of the massive plunder we have done of the natural oak forests in the UK is that the very few trees that remain really stand out alone in the landscape. Often you will see a solitary great oak forming part of a hedge, or standing proud in the middle of a field. And so we can probably see and appreciate them much better now than if we were to go back a thousand years or more – when the country was blanketed in them – and you literally couldn’t see the tree for the forests.

    I particularly like to see oak trees in winter – when you can see their gnarly cauliflower-shaped fractal trunks, branches, and twigs – and the great silhouettes formed by the trees and the ubiquitous chocking parasitic ivy.

    How to capture the essence of an Oak Tree?

    A 2D photograph doesn’t do an oak tree justice because there is so much to them. But as a starting point, what better way to depict an oak tree than by carving an oak tree from a big chunk oak…?

    How to capture an oak tree in all of its many different guises? Among other things, I wanted to try to depict their status as a keystone species. So many species of mammals (like squirrels, mice, bats), insects (like moths, butterflies (and their caterpillars), and flies), most woodland birds (like owls, tree creepers, nuthatches, tits, finches, warblers, pigeons, doves) – depend on the oak as a place to live. Birds and bats live, rest, and/or nest in the branches, holes bored into the wood, or simply cracks in the bark. Insects shelter on, and in, the bark and leaves (often highly camouflaged). Many parasitic plants like ivy and mosses live on it, as do many species of lichens and fungi.

    Many species depend on oak trees directly or indirectly for food: fungi have a symbiotic relationship with them, bees and wasps pollenate its flowers in spring, insects eat its leaves, bark, and wood. Moths prey on its flies, bats prey on its moths.

    Birds eat the oak tree’s caterpillars (of the butterflies and moths) – indeed many, like tits, specifically time their breeding to coincide with the huge glut of the caterpillars in spring – and most warblers in the UK travel all the way from Africa in early spring specifically to do this. Jays, squirrels, and some wasps and bees feed on the acorns, but it is the Jays and squirrels that actually hugely benefit the oak tree by spreading its acorns (seeds) far from where they fall. Without these, the oak tree would depend on the very poor and unreliable mechanical dispersal of acorns rolling downhill or being washed by rain water away from its canopy – in order to spread far and away, and stand a good chance of survival (often there are no plants on the ground under an oak tree’s canopy because of its very dense leaf cover and the competition for nutrients – so this is a very hostile place for the oak tree’s own seedlings to grow).

    The oak tree is a keystone species even when it is dead (or killed). Fungi, lichen, mosses, and insects will eat and/or digest them, many insects will lay their eggs in them (which in turn will eat the dead wood), and homo sapiens have built navies, buildings, used them as firewood and in the smelting of metal ores and in metals for thousands of years.

    So in a very small way I have tried to capture some of this ecological complexity…

    Fractals

    I also wanted to capture something about the oak tree’s fractal appearance. Small branches resemble a whole tree, and so do large branches. If they are pollarded, what look like whole trees grow out of their stump.

    Seasonality

    I also wanted to capture something about the oak’s seasonal differences – specifically that they have two distinct personalities: one with leaves and one without leaves. Most of the leaf clumps (summer) in the work can be removed – leaving exposed branches (winter).

    Oak’s Fruit

    I wanted to capture something about the fruit of the tree – the humble acorn – and how that tiny thing can grow into a monster of a plant – with the chance of living five hundred years or more – and it’s dead body – timber – in the right conditions capable of surviving a thousand years or more.

    Why a Jigsaw Puzzle?

    A jigsaw puzzle seemed a very apt way to represent or capture some the complexity and interconnectedness of the oak tree – which is very interesting because this is proving to be a very fruitful visual communication medium phase I am going through at the moment (I have worked in many art mediums)…

    A jigsaw puzzle is, among other things, a metaphor for my appreication of the wonder of Nature and its mysteries. It is my (very feeble) 2D representation of the 4D (3D + time = 4D) complexties and variaties of some of the huge number of spieces’ interconnectedness – where jigsaw pieces and carved lines are symbolic of some of Nature’s species, camouflage, and its mixed uses.

    Naturally, with this jigsaw puzzle being made of quite chunky oak, the hard, heavy, wood directly communicates oakness to the viewer. So in some unique, and perhaps mysterious, way, the material and the original whole subject – the oak tree – express each other…

    Texture

    Finally I wanted to capture the texture of the tree – particularly its very rough bark. I’ve tried to do this by the tactile nature of the puzzle pieces and the engraving on the work.

    “Limited Edition” of 7

    The phrase limited edition in this case is a bit of a misnomer. These are all individually handmade by me from my original design. I really wish there was, but there is no mechanical or chemical process I know of by which these can be reproduced – like screen printing, lithographs, card puzzles (using a die and jigsaw press), etc.