Total Eclipse
This was carved at the time of the total eclipse we in the UK experienced in 1999, where the idea came from.It was commissioned to go with a stunning inro of dragonflies, and for once I felt there was no need to worry about my netsuke overpowering the subject it was made for.As I had a piece of copal amber with termites in it I thought it might be worth trying to carve an intaglio of a dragonfly in the reverse. It was the first time I had tried such a thing and I was worried that I might ruin the carving and thus ruin the termites as well. The rest of the back of the amber was blacked out to give the feeling of darkness during the eclipse.I then carved the surround with bulrushes and a thin yellow circle to represent the corona of the sun. (The termites can just be made out on the photo on the left hand side) This left me with the back which caused me some thought. Since the dragonflies on the inro were all depicted from a viewpoint above them, I decided to do the opposite and show a dragonfly executed in 3/4 relief from below and outlined against a dark sun.Commissions like the ones I have made for this client (who is unknown to me), oddly enough, have proved to be some of the most thought provoking and exciting I have ever been lucky enough to have been asked to make. The intellectual challenge of fitting my work to beautiful and, no doubt, very valuable inro has been a rare pleasure and I hope people continue to commission these pieces from me.