Parasolknop of parapluknop van geverfd hout; op de knop is een patroon van tulpen gebrand c. 1920

Here's this wooden parasol handle, maybe made by Gustav Schnitzler, with painted and burned decoration. I'm imagining the controlled burn, the smell of the wood, the focus needed to coax those tulips into being. I can really sympathize with the handwork here: the maker would have spent time thinking about the tulips and their relationship to the shape and surface of the handle, the way that the pattern wraps around the curve. How to make something decorative but also functional? That repetitive gesture of burning the wood, it must have been quite meditative. I wonder if other folk artists were using similar techniques, and what other kinds of objects they made? These artists are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring each other’s creativity across time. It’s a very intimate thing, thinking about these artists making art objects, and it makes me want to go back to the studio and get burning!