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A rose is a rose is a rose.
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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 RE: A rose is a rose is a rose. (in reply to estebanana)
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Rage rage against the dying of the light.....
yeah...
That rosette is that last of the dark cream colored maple veneer I had. I had a ton of it and it's used up. It makes the white parts of the rosette less bright. There is a charm to down playing the white, a kind of modesty, but bought new veneer stock last summer and now I'm going to use Holly veneer which is WHITE WHITE.
I got a lot of odd habits from Gene, like the long talks he liked to give about Spanish makers prior to an during the Spanish Civil war. He especially admired Domingo Esteso in his usage of every little scrap, nothing wasted. He showed me the heel stack of mahogany or cedro on an Esteso ans said look at the variation in thickness of the pieces he used and the different colors of wood. Esteso had saved pieces from necks and waste and cobbled them together, he may have even salvaged small scraps for old furniture. Esteso must have used the best wood for his best guitars, but some of them have a funkiness, a poetic funkiness, that exposes the man as a wood lover, wood hoarder.
I like to read Spanish history, so a lot of my ideas about guitar making are grounded in my studies. Whether or not my conclusions in relation to guitar making are correct is not a stressful issue for me. I think of these ideas and launching points for talks with other makers and enthusiasts of Spanish history. I'll probably venture to state a few of these ideas, don't consider them to be the work of an absolute accurate historian, but ideas from a peripheral discipline of Spanish origin.
to be con't after I vacuum the house as i have been ordered by the boss to not waste time socializng online
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Ok now that I have preserved the domestic tranquility.....
Esteso seems like a place to begin for lack of anything better.
There is sample photo of an Esteso rosette from a book, I ma using it for education purposes so I say it's fair use.
The other photo is my variation on the same idea, not an exact copy, more of a permutation of Esteso's theme. I see a lot of rosette making as working out permutations of an idea. Arrive at a nice idea or steal an idea from an good maker and take off with it. To me there are two basic ways to make a rosette, one is like copying a complicated rosette in the grand manner, take for example a Torres design that is intricate, has some classic elements of rosette motif like the 'wheat stalk' braid so many people like. A classic complex pattern might have two counter mosaics, or large mosaic in the center and small less complex mosaic in the borders. The most complex rosettes and the close coping of them I consider like playing a concerto; copying out a complicated well known Torres rose is like learning the Beethoven violin concerto, right? It's formal, it's formidable, difficult. It has to be done a certain way, it takes research and a lot of set up. It's very admirable.
The second way I see is like a jazz player working on a standard. You can gravitate to some difficult Torres, Simplicio or Esteso rosette and work out the changes. Abstract out a chunk of the rosette and copy it verbatim, or just be inspired by the general thrust of the colors an pattern and work out a variation of your own. It's using history as a spare parts shop and taking what you can bite down on and reusing it. It's like a jazz player learning the melody of a standard and then taking it out.
Concerto playing the rosette is a sure way into the collectors heart and mind, but knowing how to play jazz riffs of your won is also appreciated and rewarded. Here is the Esteso rosette I played off of as if it were a jazz standard. I'm definitely coming down on the jazz side of rosette making.
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Date Apr. 1 2017 2:39:06
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: A rose is a rose is a rose. (in reply to estebanana)
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Thanks Norman.
The confessional part-
I made a terrible rosette with those mosaic tiles first, looked at it for a several months and then disassembled the tiles from the rosette. I cut out each tile by hand with a scalpel and cleaned the edges with a chisel and then made a whole new rose with the re used tiles. The result is the rosette in the post above, the train wreck is below.
If you sharpen the tools and put on the magnification visor and get an extra cup of coffee, such rescue operations are possible.
It's embarrassing this thing is super raggedy, which is why it never left the shop. It was a shot at using white for an outside border, this so far has not worked for me except o one occasion. Here I tried to do it again, but somehow I knew it was a bad idea and did not really follow through. Result, odd rosette. It could have worked with strong black borders and carefully fit tiles. The image the tiles make in that orientation is good, but not set into a solid support of black or dark ground color. The purple-yellow-blue lines are good too, it would have been a great rosette if I had used black, but oh well one for experience.
The compartmentalization used to make each tile look like a cell of its own is a good strategy if you pull it off seamlessly between tiles. The image that is like an abstract butterfly, and I like that. I may go after that idea again, but with full technical concentration.
This is also very much the kind of self inflicted mind screwery I learned from Gene Clark, who said: "The difference between good/bad work and great work is rework."
I reworked it and came out ahead, this time.
The saxophonist Rassan Roland Kirk said: "It's a smart man who knows how to quit when he's behind."
Words for rosette makers to live by.
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Date Apr. 2 2017 2:03:00
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estebanana
Posts: 9413
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: A rose is a rose is a rose. (in reply to estebanana)
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The upper rosette is a modern take on a traditional format- Center tile or element followed by some border work lines of varying width and weight holding colored bands, Then a black field and more border work ending in black lines against the top wood.
Five elements- Center, border, field, more decorative lines, black border to wood. Most early twentieth century Spanish rosette work either follows that format or is usually some variation on that format.
Lower rosette, follows same format, but the black field is absent, also fair game. And the rope braid element is not countered, it's running the same direction. A thing a few makers did, Manuel de la Chica did it frequently, for example
That five element format is a great composition to base the work on and it has that connection to the best Spanish work.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 6 2017 16:03:51
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