The art and craft of marquetry at the VAULT

Breeze VanDant is a self-taught marquetry artist. He creates beautiful designs with woods, Paua abalone and fine metals.
http://www.vermontjournal.com/content/art-and-craft-marquetry-vault

The Art and Craft of Marquetry At The VAULT Submitted by admin on Tue, 03/25/2014 - 4:20pm SPRINGFIELD, VT -T. Breeze VanDant, of Brattleboro, Vermont, is a self-taught marquetry artist. He creates beautiful designs with woods, Paua abalone and fine metals. His jewelry and boxes often include magnolia blossoms, the night sky, moons and stars. He also favors the mountains of his Vermont home. He rarely depicts animals, because “the beauty of a deer is in that fleeting encounter in the forest, not pasting it down in wood.” Breeze has worked with wood for 25 years, building houses from lumber he logged. He took a class in marquetry at the Penland Craft School in Asheville, N.C., bought a scroll saw and “hit the road running.” Breeze is primarily a one-person operation, making tables, boxes, mirrors, pins, and guitars. He works with woods from all over the world, applying thin sheets onto solid wood bases that are mostly indigenous, temperate forest woods such as walnut and cherry - known as “Vermont Mahogany.” According to Breeze, “I do this stuff because I love wood! I get to work with all kinds of outrageous stuff that I would never get my hands on otherwise. The best wood gets sliced into veneers and I deal with the wildest of freak veneers. That’s what I’m interested in and partially what keeps me going. I have a huge penchant for detail, in fact an imagination that makes a lot of trouble for me because I can’t keep up with it in terms of following through with all of my ideas. Keeping the work small allows me to play with a lot of different concepts without getting crazy with the amount of detail a larger piece demands.” * The Vermont State Craft Center, Gallery at the VAULT, in Springfield showcases Breeze’s necklaces and earrings. His jewelry transformes marquetry from a highly structured, symmetrical approach into a more impressionistic style where wood grain is part of the design. The individual pieces look like tiny paintings as he uses the contrasting grains like a painter would use color. Non-toxic shellac and lacquer is used to protect the finished work. Breeze has been practicing marquetry full time since 1988. His aim with wood is to create and share the greatest amount of beauty while consuming the smallest amount of wood. *Wood News, January 2006.