Personal Inscriptions
Onto the back of our challah boards
Calligraphy is made up of thick and thin lines
I learned to love pen and ink at the beginning of my artistic career. I found drawing or writing with such high contrast, to be challenging and exciting. Years later, I burned a typographic design of mine into wood and never looked back. With wood I was able to maintain the high contrast paper offered, while conjuring a new tactile experience to the piece. Rather than this being a piece of art which is off limits to touch, letter carvings often evoke the viewer to reach out and trace the grooves with their fingers, creating a sensory connection to both the material and the message it conveys.
To engrave the wood, I first draw the letters with a pencil. This can be done quite loosely and to erase or change something a thin metal scraper is used. Next, I use a ‘V’ gouge and a mallet to carve out the thicker parts of each letter. Then, using a temperature controlled pen, I’ll burn the side walls of the lines I’ve carved. To create the thin parts of each character, I slice through the wood with the pen tip red hot. Surprisingly, this method has similar results to an inky pen in paper, and ‘bleeds’ around the edges. So, I sand a thin layer off the top surface to reveal crisp lines. The board is oiled, with a food safe beeswax, and is ready for Shabbat.