“Hummer”, 2020, wood intarsia. I made this little hummingbird piece as a “quick and easy” palette cleanser after my previous incredibly tedious bee project. The main reason I designed this specific piece (besides being a mental health exercise) was to compare it to a similar work I made 3 years ago when I first learned intarsia (swipe to the final pic). It’s funny because I thought my original hummingbird was pretty cool back when I designed it. Looking at it now, it seems just ridiculously amateurish. I call that progress! Hopefully in a few years, this will look equally stupid (though I’m sure I’ve reached diminishing returns). The new piece was intentionally made of a more chaotic mix of grains and colors. I just wanted to have fun with it and make it kinda weird. It’s constructed from 16 species: canarywood, bocote, walnut, black palm, chakta viga, leopardwood, katalox, holly, cherry, redheart, yellowheart, olive, honey locust, maple, crab apple, and elm.
