Mary Jane Jim Chadbourne's amazing work

Oh Boy, I knew I should have taken notes at our last meeting!!   Here are the amazing pictures that Jamie took of MaryJane Chadbourne's work.  If you're visiting this blog you may be wondering why these beautiful art pieces are featured on a woodworkers group site.  Well, let me back up just a bit and have you scroll down and look at the fourth and seventh picture.  Yep, that's how these started out.  Her husband, Jim, is a member of the group and as a woodworker married to an artist, he gets to make the  wooden boxes for his wife to embellish.  These are not without complications and challenges.  For one thing, the polymer  clay that MJ so skillfully embosses and paints, create lots of weight -- add the findings she attaches to them as well and you end up with a pretty heavy object.  Until Jim figured out different ways to counter-weight the boxes they had a tendency to fall over when they were opened.



These two boxes are a good example of that, Jim ended up hollowing out the feet and putting some lead in there so they wouldn't flip.  Mary Jane gave the name for the little shutter detail that you see on the right box which she gets in Mexico ---- told you I should have taken notes!






Here you see MaryJane as she explains how she works the polymer clay.  In the photo below you can see exactly how much detail there is to her art work.  Look closely and you can make out the portrait of a woman complete with a beaded collar -- and we thought cutting dovetails by hand was exacting.





This is a close up of her work.  She can put sayings or other pictures on them and has done several commissions for either single or series of her boxes.  Her work is displayed in galleries here in Las Vegas and also in Utah.