Tag: Wood Carving

Mid-week Update

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

So, this week has been crazy at work and at home. On the home-front, there were birthdays, shopping, it is Income Tax time, we have 3-4 guys showing up every morning at 7:00 with tools in hand to work in and on the attic.

My shop is full.  I can’t even get to my table saw and my bench is stacked 5′ high with insulation.   I need a little shop time to keep me sane or at least saner…  So, I took a little me time and signed up for some classes for spring and early summer where I will get use other folks shops and build/make stuff:

  1. Canoe Paddle Making
  2. Claw and Ball Foot Carving
  3. A 10-Week Letter Press Workshop
  4. Woodcarving Figures
  5. Spoon Carving
  6. Block Printing
  7. Industrial Sewing: canvas and leather

Film Friday – Lincoln Park in West Seattle, Washington

/ Matt Talley / 4 Comments

OK, so it is not Friday, but I started working on this video Friday night…  Does that count?

Lincoln Park in West Seattle is one of my favorite spaces in all of the Seattle metro area.  It is a phenomenal urban space:  Stamps-With-Foot and I go there all the time just to hang out, I used to run there along the beach and through the trees in the mornings, it was my first outing after hip surgery, our monsters puppies love it there, it is romantic, great for picnics, strolling hand and hand along the beach, a fine hour+ long hike after work, a protected kayak launching point, good fishing spot when the salmon are running (the pink run started earlier this week…), there is a public pool, bald eagles nest in the trees along the shore, and sometimes I go and watch the sunset from on e of the many benches when I have had a bad day.  I hope this little film captures part of the magic of the place.

Art in Paris – July 2014

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Regardless of what your personal belief structure might look like, it is hard to see some things that were created by the hands of men and women and not wonder if there is something greater than ourselves out there. The Musee d’Orsay is full of those objects: from sculpture to paintings to carvings to furniture. It is not just the Orsay though – it is the entire city of Paris. Buildings, museums, subway stations, churches, stained glass, public art, gravestones in Père Lachaise, even the trash cans on the street corners.

Below are pictures from a recent visit to The Orsay, The Cluny (see previouse Carving post), St. Eustice Church, and Notre Dame, with shots from various walks through the city.

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Wood Carvings at the Cluny in Paris

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

We spent 3 hours at Musée de Cluny (Musée national du Moyen Âge) in Paris on a recent trip. I highly recommend the little museum and the adjacent garden. While I enjoyed the tapestry and armor and paintings, it was the wood carvings that really stood out. The detail… Braids, carved folds in the dresses, miniature figures and scenes in a triptych that were beyond belief, fingernails, pages of a book… All carved in 400+ year old oak. Astonishing.

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Side note: the plums in The Unicorn Forest (forêt de la Licorne) section on the garden were ripe and falling. I tried one ant it was delicious – upper sweet and deep blood red. They will make terrific jam. I may have brought 10-15 plums home with me and extracted the seeds. I plan to plant a few in a local forest and I have a sneaking suspicion that a very similar tree will grow in our yard in Seattle and in a friend of ours yard in Portland…