Spalting and Wood Turning Lecture@None

Seri Robinson is a scientist, professor, artist, and writer, who has perhaps spent too much time around organic solvents. Her research and art focus on the ancient art form of spalting and its modern uses in science and turning today. Outside of work she enjoys roller derby, woodturning, making chainmail by hand, and cultivating fungi in the backs of minivans.

Before chemistry there was alchemy, and before aniline dyes and fancy woodworking colorants there was spalted wood. Kept as a closely guarded guild secret in Italy and later, Germany, spalted wood (wood colored internally by fungi) was used in intarsia in marquetry for palaces, churches, and upper-class furniture. Spalted wood provided a natural, stable color in wood that could not be made in medieval Europe, and that even in modern times cannot be rivaled. The art of spalted wood, unfortunately, was all but lost to history during the Industrial Revolution, but has found footing in the United States Studio Woodturning movement. Now, woodturners around the world are rediscovering the potential of fungal-colored wood and scientists are investigating the mechanisms of its incredible colorfastness.

Join Dr. Robinson on a trip through time, from ancient palaces to solar cells, from intricate bureaus to massive modern sculpture, and trace the evolution of an ancient art into a modern science miracle.