Walnut Marquetry

A cabinetmaker has this photograph pinned above the bench and is cutting it as a marquetry panel. Every tone in the picture becomes a different veneer: walnut, maple, a little ebony in the darks. Knife joints show. Grain direction changes from piece to piece. The man is still that man — same age, hair, clothes, stance — assembled from wood, not carved as a generic figure. The panel is slightly bowed. A strip of uncut veneer and a cutting mat sit along the bottom edge of the frame. Workshop daylight, raking so the joints catch. Not a painting of wood, not a log-cabin quilt, not Minecraft blocks, not a wood-filter overlay on a photo.