Marquetry is an art form that uses diverse wood species to create designs on the wooden surface of objects, often furniture. Patterns, shapes, and other pictorial elements are cut from veneer sheets as thin as cardstock, using a scroll saw, chevalet (a hand- and foot-powered tool), knife, or laser, with the forethought and planning required to assemble complex and seam- less pictures from so many delicate pieces. The art of marquetry was likely born out of Italian Renaissance intarsia, a wood inlay art derived from Islamic intarsia, which may in turn have been a playful turn on Byzantine mosaic art. The exhibition Free Verse: Explorations in Contemporary Marquetry offers examples in splendid variety. Artists working in marquetry today might adorn a box, cabinet, tabletop, or even, with a fine disregard for tradition, a solid-body electric guitar. The Center for Furniture Craftmanship presents a rare opportunity to see contemporary marquetry art created by leading and pioneering practitioners from the United States, Canada, Europe, and Africa.

In his invitation to artists, Free Verse’s curator, wood artist, and luthier James Macdonald of Burnham wrote, “What compels us to concern ourselves with thin fragile slices of wood?” Macdonald intended the invitation as a provocation, asking the artists to push boundaries and break rules, to create new works, or to exhibit works representative of their unique take on marquetry. Of the 21 wood artists in FreeVerse, most have made a career in the artful assemblage of veneers, all share a compulsion to work in a niche medium demanding highly skilled craftsmanship, and all take their work to places outside the traditional playbook.

Marquetry does not want to be mistaken for painting. Or does it? Silas Kopf is a world-renowned marquetry artist who has a painter’s sensibility about where the light is in any given moment of his astounding trompe l’oeil creations. Kopf, who was Macdonald’s teacher, builds furniture pieces for his marquetry designs, rather than embellishing furniture with marquetry. Silas Kopf’s Gone Fishin’ cabinet shares the space with a cabinet by his daughter, Sasha Kopf, who learned the art form from her father. Backyard Birds is a playful nod to the marquetry tradition of trompe l’oeil cabinets, with the illusion of a door open to the cabinet’s interior, but her cabinet door opens inward to the outdoors, where a squirrel is about to outsmart a bird feeder. “There is a rightness about passing along a career when it’s also an expression of love,” Macdonald observes, acknowledging the commitment father and daughter made to spending time together in the East Hampton, Massachusetts, studio where they built their cabinets for the exhibition.

The inherent limitations of marquetry can be stifling or exhilarating, especially concerning color; natural veneers provide a palette of rich contrasts but are limited to the colors of wood species. In Lichen Cabinet, Shannon Bowser (Brooklyn, New York) works with multicolored dyed poplar veneers to create bold botanical elements. Others use dyed veneers sparingly or not at all, preferring to give voice to a subtler range of natural wood colors. Paula Garbarino’s (Somerville, Massachusetts) Weeping Cherry Blossom Cabinet depicts the weighty branch of a blossoming cherry tree in warm cherrywood veneers of different thicknesses and some light carving, giving the flowers a low-relief sculptural effect. At the same time, many wood species have inherent patterns, chatoyance, or defined grain lines that beg to be considered compositionally, decoratively, or narratively in the hands of a marquetry artist. In Spiral Fish Table, Paul Schürch (Santa Barbara, California) segments quilted maple in a circular pattern with a high-contrast border. The effect is the illusion of a very watery whirlpool, the drama heightened by a beautifully swirled fishing line about to catch a fish. “In addition to being a masterful depiction of a fish rising to the surface of active water, the table’s drawers for storage of sushi trays are an engineering marvel—a playful marriage of form and function,” says Macdonald.

In Bankers Box, Adrian Ferrazzutti (Guelph, Ontario, Canada) elevates an everyday object with Pop Art playfulness. The contrasting browns of his vintage-style file storage box, in pau ferro, rosewood, European sycamore, ebony, dyed poplar, and mahogany veneers, are color-matched to perfect likeness. Reimagined in marquetry, the humble box has an assertiveness and material elegance. It achieves a beautiful design in ways that the cardboard original never quite managed.

Free Verse: Explorations in Contemporary Marquetry will be on display from January 24 to April 2, 2025, in the Messler Gallery at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport.