“It’s just amazing, the diversity of wood. You can take the same piece of wood, and two different artists will come out with completely different pieces,” marvelled Craig Altobello, as he sorted through his own collection of wooden slabs – grouped by a surprising range of natural shades.
Altobello uses these natural shades to make marquetry, or wood inlays, depicting landscapes, birds, flowers and leaves, which will be on display and for sale this weekend at the Francestown Labor Day Juried Arts and Crafts Exhibit and Sale, which Altobello will be appearing in for the first time.
And to Altobello’s point, another artist making their debut at the show is Jackie O’Hare, another Peterborough artist that uses wood – though in a completely different way. O’Hare is a weaver who uses woods like ash and willow to craft shaker-style as well as more contempory baskets.
Though their ultimate forms are quite different, both artists said their favorite part of their craft is the color.
Altobello uses the natural tones of woods that he gets from a variety of sources – from specialty woods to lumber yards to people’s backyard apple trees – to inspire his works. So a black acacia tree from California, that gives off just the slightest irridescent sheen might become the individual feathers of a flitting bird’s wing, or a unique mix of light blue and red within a slab of wood might spark the idea of a mountain range sunset.
“Wood has a wide variety of color, grains, patterns,” said Altobello. “This becomes my pallet. It’s an imposed limitation. I can’t create the colors. I have to find them.”
And for O’Hare, she makes up her own paints to give her baskets a stand-out look.
“I play with color,” she said, adding that she usually paints the staves – the base – and the weavers slightly different shades. “For me, it’s exciteing to see what the pattern brings.”
Both Altobello and O’Hare are former teachers who came upon their current art style later in life.
O’Hare, an art teacher, spent most of her career focused on photography, but said she always loved the three-dimensional world of sculpture. And when she started to take classes on basket weaving about 15 years ago, she immediately began to see the similarities in crafting a functional shape.
“The way you control and shape the basket is almost like pottery and the way you throw clay,” said O’Hare. “Every time I do a basket I learn something new.”
What also attracts her, added O’Hare, is the immense history behind her craft, something that she said is becoming lost as fewer people value the functional arts.
“It’s so rich,” said O’Hare, of the cultural aspect of basket weaving, recalling moments shared with students from Cambodia whose families still use weaving to create working tools such as fishing baskets. “For me, it’s still exciting, every time that I go to a basket show.
For Altobello, he said, he had been working with wood for many years, and had made and sold furniture pieces – which is how he was initially introduced to the idea of marquetry, which can be used to decorate furniture. But despite taking some classes on marquetry, it remained just an idea kicking around his head for almost ten years, said Altobello.
“Eventually, I had to say, ‘Either I’m going to get this or I’m not,’” said Altobello, and he sat down to make his first marquetry piece – a purple finch, in keeping with his now signiture nature subjects. And when it quickly sold, Altobello realized he was onto something.
“It was a touchstone moment for me,” he said.
The Juried Arts and Crafts Exhibit and Sale is only one of the many events planned as part of the 99th Francestown Labor Day celebrations, including the Labor Day parade on Monday at 2 p.m., themed this year “Greatest Moments in History.”
The arts and crafts show will be held on Monday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. in front of the town offices on Main Street.