October 10, 2023 - March 1, 2024

Abraham Tesser is an Athens - based artist and furniture maker who creates magic with wood. He has exhibited large-scale pieces at the Lyndon House Arts Center over the years; however, this exhibition looks at his tiny works, the maquettes, or a scale models in wood used as drafts or “drawings” for bigger pieces.

“I am a long-time resident of Athens. After a full and satisfying career as a research psychologist at the University of Georgia, I became serious about woodworking and studio furniture making. I found that even after retirement one can learn a lot by attending extended workshops offered by accomplished artists and craftspeople. For more than two decades now my major “work” focus has been designing and constructing furniture in my home studio. My work often incorporates sensuous curves and unusual and exotic veneers. More recently I have been exploring the Japanese art of Kumiko. I work alone and enjoy the solitude. I also enjoy talking/lecturing/writing about and promoting wood art. 

This exhibit, “Maquette”, is testimony to the primacy of design in the process of building furniture. Before starting a new project, a lot of thought goes into what something will look like and how it will function. Since most of my work is “one off”, almost all of my projects are “new”. The design process for each piece is different but often it involves, 2-dimensional sketching by hand and machine, and 3-dimensional sketching, i.e., a maquette. 

The maquette is a scaled down, preliminary version of the piece. (Sometimes, I use full scale mock ups of the piece or parts of the piece.) The maquette is built as quickly and conveniently as possible while still containing the features that might be important. Temporary adherents like hot glue, scotch tape or double-sided tape make the construction quick and, importantly, make it easier to swap out pieces.The maquette is particularly useful for visualizing the piece in 3 dimensions, checking proportions, and even providing hints about construction techniques or potential glitches.Incidentally, I love some maquettes simply because they are cute. 

Designing and building furniture is very personal. I struggle with every detail of a design. Even after long periods of thought, 2-dimensional sketches and maquettes, I continue to redesign as I am building. The finished piece is unlikely to be what I originally envisioned but a more or less different piece. 

At the workbench, I find it hard to beat the feeling produced by guiding the transformation of a piece of rough lumber into an elegant, smooth part. When things go well, when a hand plane produces the perfect shaving, when a beautiful shape emerges on the lathe, when a piece of wood that has just been surfaced shows a figure or character that is better than expected, it is indeed thrilling. With luck, the piece will be one that captures the eye and invites the hand to touch. Hopefully, someone else will find the work interesting or attractive, or notice a subtle detail that I worked so hard to include.” - Abraham Tesser