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Saturday 2 August 2014

Giving new life to fallen timber with unique carvings of the natural worlds


Creating one beautiful example from nature from another is a former boat builder Andre Daniel’s passion. Andrea Kuhn met him at his South Devon studio to see his wonderful work.
He began his career on a large scale, building classic wooden boats, but now a Devon craftsman is hoping that the tiniest of projects will become his trademark.
In his South Devon workshop Andre Daniel creates delicate wooden moths which celebrate the many varieties of British timber.
Each piece is different as it uses the whorls and ripples of the wood grain to represent the features of the moth. They are then given their own Latin name; Gigas Ulmus Tinia, the Giant Elm Moth; Accipiter Taxus Tinia, the Hawk Yew Moth.
“I love the fact that every single one is unique because I look at the wood for inspiration,” says Andre.
“I have been making them for about a year now so I’ve refined the process. But I think every day they’re getting better and better.”
Each moth also comes with its own tree-provenance; a storm-felled tree from nearby woods; a blackened post from Sutton Harbour.
“Times have moved on and we have much more respect for our wildlife now than in the past,” he says. “We don’t want to see a real moth pinned behind a glass.
“But they are such beautiful insects and such an important part of our countryside and I wanted to show that.”
Andre has been making furniture for almost ten years, often decorating his work with an inlaid dragonfly, but one day he decided to trying and make something more three dimensional and an idea was born.
He has been selling his Devon Moths locally but, encouraged by their popularity, he now plans to take them to a wider market in London.
“I have had such a good response that my biggest challenge now will just be to produce enough of them,” he says.

Read more at http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Giving-new-life-fallen-timber-unique-carvings/story-21947734-detail/story.html#fcxMdiagox3CFdrW.99

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