Friday, March 28, 2008

Grace Zabriskie


The Newest Box! With Bullets.
5" x 5" x 10"

First comes the image. Many of the images Grace uses are photographs of complete paintings, or details of paintings. (All the paintings reproduced on the boxes are early paintings done by Marion Lane, who is Grace's daughter.) Some of her images are her own graphic work, or photographs she's made, or collages Grace made from her photographs, or, occasionally, the photographs made by another photographer, for the purpose of creating a box.

The size the box should be is then determined. The wood is cut, sanded, glued and clamped. Then sanded again. Paint (usually black) is applied inside and out, and the photographic images are imbedded in a two-part epoxy resin, using a process originally invented by Marion. Once the shiny resin coats have cured for two weeks, they are sanded with fine to extremely fine grits, and then waxed and buffed. The black surfaces are re-coated with more black acrylic paint and finished with coats of water-based polyurethane. At some point the holes are drilled to accept the birch Shaker pegs for the box and the knob or peg for the lid. Or the legs and knob are sculpted by Grace of walnut or mahogany or some exotic wood. She has also used antique glass doorknobs and brass legs, etc.

A finished box is signed, on the outside bottom, by Grace and also by Marion if the image involves one of her paintings.

Sometimes the image takes months to create, but once Grace has the image, the box takes about six weeks, unless it is a complicated comission piece, which can take up to six months. Even the smaller boxes are extremely labor intensive.

hi yah G R A C E. THIS NEW BOX IS LORD !!!

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