Marquetry
Rose Vine/Double Helix Design
Amanda's Dreamkeeper
The rose vine that wraps completely around the Double Helix was designed by Clark Eid to mirror a segment of double-stranded DNA that codes for a peptide that spells "Amanda's Dream Keeper", in honor of his daughter, Amanda, who suffers from Rett Syndrome. This mural was created by using over 3,000 pieces of 63 different wood veneers in a technique known as marquetry. Click here to read how to decode the rose vine. Click here to read how to "decode" the rose vine to spell "Amanda's Dreamkeeper"!.
Amanda's Dreamkeeper
The rose vine that wraps completely around the Double Helix was designed by Clark Eid to mirror a segment of double-stranded DNA that codes for a peptide that spells "Amanda's Dream Keeper", in honor of his daughter, Amanda, who suffers from Rett Syndrome. This mural was created by using over 3,000 pieces of 63 different wood veneers in a technique known as marquetry. Click here to read how to decode the rose vine. Click here to read how to "decode" the rose vine to spell "Amanda's Dreamkeeper"!.
1. Shown are eight roses, made from eight different wood veneers. In total, 61 different wood veneers were used to create 120 rose flowers. Four different rose flower patterns were alternatively placed so that a single view of the craft was always unique. The flowers were to go in as pairs, with a Purple Heart veneered flower in each pair served as an important clue for the hidden code.
3. A flexible measuring tape and blue masking tape were wrapped around the craft locate the positions of the 120 rose flowers. The mural stretches 30 feet around the 25 foot craft, with the rose pairs located at 6 inch intervals. (A one foot gap was made to place the compass ring.)
5. The first veneers to be affixed to the craft were the
flowers. This was accomplished by coating one side of the veneer piece with Tight bond II wood glue, allowed this to dry, positioning the piece against the craft and using a hot iron to melt/conform the piece to the craft.
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2. Shown are some of the 1,500+ leaves cut for the rose
vines. Generally, there were four different sizes and 18
different shapes used on the vines. The vines were cut using a loose blade to create the effect of having thorns. To make curves, the many tiny wedges were cut from vine and the pieces segmented together. To make it more interesting, the vines were shown to grow in the directions that DNA was synthesized!
4. The second items to go into the mural were the small leaves directly under the flower. Either two or three leaves were added for a given pair of flowers, necessary for the hidden code. (Two or three wooden bees were going to be used, but Clark was running out of time so he defaulted to a simpler solution.)
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6. The vine sections were cut using a loosely fitted scroll
saw blade, creating the illusion of a thorny vine. These were fitted, taking care to show the two vines growing in two different directions, a technical point referring to DNA's structure.
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7. Leaves, lots and lots of leaves maddening leaves, were added to the bare vine to bring it alive.
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8. Close-up of the marquetry on the center deck. Note the space left in the center to be used for a compass.
10. Close-up of the the bow. The last flower on the end of the sense strand (the right vine in the picture) used Zebra wood (in the third position of the stop codon). Little details like this helped to promote the Double Helix to the scientific community.
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9. Close-up of the forward deck.
11. This is the Double Helix before going on to the glassing process.
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