My Pictures and the way I walked with them
[mother-of-pearl, metal and wood]

I have been working incrustation for twelve years. This art technique is described as mounting (inlay) of bone, mother-of-pearl, metal, precious and semi-precious stones in articles. Samples of this art arouse admiration in museums all over the world. They are made on different continents and in different epoch as a result of the skills of many people, to express the eternal strive of the mankind for beauty and perfection.

When you touch a work of art that outlived centuries, you find something unexpected. Your senses feel the perfect make and the desire of the artist to show his best.

This experience tempted me to begin my first works. It was a challenge for me to make incrustation in wood and to revive its oldest forms, as nowadays it is used only by goldsmiths. I inlaid mother-of-pearl and metal in wooden bracelets, earrings and jewel boxes. The combination of these materials impressed me with the variety of forms, contrasts and transfusions. While using this method I felt the same that masters of incrustation have known for centuries: This is a technique which turns the ordinary articles into works of art.

Gradually I lost my interests to wooden jewellery. There were two reasons for that – my desire to avoid repetition of ornaments, and an event I cannot forget. I was in a shop with a friend of mine looking at some perfectly made souvenirs. There were about twenty of them, all beautiful but the same as tin soldiers. Then my friend told me “When you see such similar things, you should know this is an achievement of modern technologies, and not a work of artists like you.” For this reason I never make the same works, I always create unique works with spirit of their own.

Thus I incrusted my first work of metal. After engraving it turned into an original work of art. Its creation was not easy. The work with engraving instruments should be very precise and you can see the result only after filling the cut out places with paint. The first works I made using this method, were tablets with the signs of the Zodiac.

With many efforts I improved the ancient technology by cast of tin and lead into the wood. The medieval artists cast the molten alloy into preliminary shaped channels, and then burnished it until the surface became smooth.

With time I learned to cast works of various size. The alloy I use is based on tin but it is hard enough to be engraved. You need the skills of a wood-carver and founder to produce such a cast. The cutting of the image should be very precise and the temperature of the metal should not make the wood crackle.

When I saw the mother-of-pearl and the metal inlaid in wood, I felt a new challenge which captivated me for life. Thus my “Pictures of mother-of-pearl, metal and wood” appeared. In their make only the idea is spontaneous. The drawing should be complied with the used technique. It should be exquisite and void of details because of the deliberate refusal of richer means of expression.

After the creation of the first pictures, I realized they were something new. They were neither mosaic, nor just the incrustation we are used to. They were “Pictures of mother-of-pearl, metal and wood”. In them the decorative art gives way to fine art without losing anything of its perfection.

I pay a lot of attention to the wood I use. Its quality and structure are of major importance. I use linden, pear, plum, apple and walnut wood. In shaping the pictures I apply some of the traditions of orthodox iconography. I put foil to enrich the colours, and I began to colour the glues for mother-of-pearl with various pigments. The pictures became more colourful and easier to perceive. I made the frames of the same materials as the pictures. They are part of them and stress their beauty once again.

I think that the combination between incrustation, engraving and elements of orthodox iconography art techniques arouse a feeling of solemnity and peace. Thus every technique is outlined and stands out, and at the same time enriches and adds to the others.

If I have to say with one word only what I pursue with “Pictures of mother-of-pearl, metal and wood”, I will use the word beauty. And if I have to explain beauty, I would rather quote Umberto Eko (“The name of the rose”): “Because three are the things the combination of which bears beauty: first of all, entity and perfection – for this reason we consider unfinished things ugly; then the proportions or the harmony, and finally – the clarity and the light – for we call beautiful all things with clear colours.” I strived for this through all the years of my work.

I hope you can also feel the severity of metal, the warmth of wood, the merging colours of mother-of-pearl, and the gleam of the foil. The judgement of all this I leave to you – the Connoisseurs.