A means of support
A few years back, I was researching the techniques of Byzantine icon writing. I prepared three boards from scratch. One board was hand carved by a man who prepared icon boards for an Eastern Orthodox community in Pennsylvania. Pieced from strips of birch, it was a thick slab, with a lovely indentation at the center, providing the requisite broad border area for this sort of art.
I will go into greater detail on this process when I prepare another board from scratch, suffice to say that I began with rabbitskin glue sealing all sides, and a piece of glue-soaked muslin laid over the face of the board. Then I mixed a rabbitskin glue/chalk/whiting into a traditional gesso and applied it in 12 layers as specifically described, gradually thinning the mixture every three layers until I obtained a deep surface of it, with the smoothest and thinnest layers on top.
I let the boards cure, but shortly thereafter I obtained a job contract that left me little time for the elaborate process of icon writing. When checking back at six months, it became obvious that the birch board had warped from left to right, leaving it straight from top to bottom, like the side of a can. This is not acceptable in an icon writing support. I have since found much better results with cradled boards, or uncradled boards which are not pieced in any way. When using boards, I am more careful to seal all sides with multiple layers of rabbitskin glue before applying gesso.
I couldn’t bring myself to throw out the birch board. A lot of good energy had been invested in it, and the curve was so smooth and symmetrical. Only a single, thin crack had developed in the gesso surface, easily repaired. This meant that the surface itself had been well-prepared, with no extensive cracking during the movement of the warping board, and was unlikely to be damaged further as time went on. A light sanding was all the preparation needed.
So, in reviewing my options, seven years later, I decided to use the birch board, curve and all, in one of the Angelus pieces. Birch Interlace was a perfect fit, both physically and poetically, and considering I prepared the two at separate times, it is really amazing how it has worked out.