Joseph Ascrizzi, a master artist-artisan, crosses time barriers to bring ancient media and techniques to contemporary visual expression.

He creates his art out of his owner-built workshop-studios located in rural Freedom, Maine. Using his multi-faceted skills and incorporating a wide variety of natural and unexpected materials, he creates a complex interplay of art forms, which include: bas-relief, carved and inlaid box and wall sculptures, paintings, drawings, fine woodworking, fine antique frame restoration and the lapidary arts.

Of his art, the artist says:

"My work is based on the premise that everything one encounters in the physical world holds meaning, and that matter itself, if arranged and presented coherently, can speak in its own language of an interior life.

"I see my works as visual poems, ‘written’ in intricate phrases, in overlays of spalted maple and flame mahogany, in cross-sections of moose skull or brain coral, in inlaid branches of lilac or wisteria, in twisting yellow pine and sycamore roots, in lead and gold sheets, in the polished resonance of amethyst and malachite, in the purity of mother-of-pearl, in the simple virtue of Maine basswood.

"Rocks, trees, bones. They speak in ancient tongues, and at times I am composer, assigning time and key signatures to their many voices."

His sculptures have been exhibited in galleries and museums in New York City, New England, Maryland and Maine. Articles about his work have appeared in Architectural Digest, Fine Woodworking, Down East Magazine and many other publications.

Sculptures

Sculptures integrate traditional joinery and original carvings and paintings. At times architectonic and iconic and always poetic, his work establishes a balance between seemingly random fragments of found materials and the sacred geometry of form.

Paintings

W/ PICS

Paintings and drawings are imagistic, evocative and mysterious, as if springing from an eternal dream matrix.

Jewelry

Antler and bone pendants, necklaces and carvings merge old traditions with new vision to create jewelry as an art.

Furniture-As-An-Art

Large-scale, private and public commissions embody innovative materials and forms to create furniture as an art.

Fine Frame Restoration

Fine antique restoration for museums, colleges and other institutions and private collectors.

Workshops on Medieval Materials & Techniques

Workshops give centuries-old recipes, formulas, techniques and materials for preparing gesso, grinding pigments, making paints, pastels, gesso, compo and water and oil gilding.