Artist's creations using Lazertran - Inlay pattern made of Lazertran decals

Lisa Undercoffler

Studied at California College of Art & Crafts. Her piece below is called Bonheur-du-Jour for Marie Antoinette 2003. The Bonheur-du-lour was a type of small lady's writing desk popular during the reign of Louis XVI in France. This facsimile for Marie Antoinette was created as a biographical study of her as a person, as seen through the multi-faceted lens of history, using the formal language of furniture. Since the Bonheur-du-lour was often fitted with hidden compartments accessed through a mechanical apparatus, it was considered to be at the foref ront of furniture technology of the ti me. Because of this, I chose to make the desk using the techncslogy available to us now. While the design and dimensions were taken from a similar period piece, it is constructed of maple and maple-veneered plywood put together with biscuit joints. instead of marquetry, the inlay pattern is entirely made of Lazertran decals. The sunflower (one of Marie Antoinette's personal symbols) pattern is based on marquetry adorning a jewel chest owned by her that I saw on a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. To make the pattern, I scanned pieces of wood and created faux-inlay panels for each surface of the desk using Photoshop and Illustrator. Once the decals were made for each area, I applied them using the turpentine method. When dry. each piece was coated with a water-based varnish. The Bonheur was assembled last. In the gallery installation the desk was placed on the floor with an 18th century French chair. The cabinet does not open from the front, but people were invited to peek through the large keyhole on the escutcheon to view a video playing inside. The back of the cabinet was visible to the audience, but where it opens it was secured shut by three small padlocks (the type a young girl would use to lock her diary) placed in a manner suggesting the back of a corset. The interior of the cabinet is blood red, with a broken-heart marquetry motif on the inside of the doors - but not accessible to the viewer - only to myself or people I choose to show.Through a year of researching Marie-Antoinette, this piece came to embody the dilemma of her reality: as a figure head there was no place for Marie the person, so very few people really knew her. Even when we start to peel away the layers of myth surrounding her, she remains inaccessible to us as a person, as a woman, as a mother. In the end the Bonheur-du-Jour also became a piece about my own struggle with being in school as an older student (I am 38), and with my self as an artist. While I am driven to make objects. I feel extremely vulnerable about putting myself "out there", and tend to want to keep part of my work just for me. Also, like Marie. and like myself, the true nature of the Bonheur is easily misunderstood by the cursory glance. The desk appears to be perfectly executed marquetry from afar, but as one gets closer and interacts with it, they discover they are dealing with something far different than what they assumed.