ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST Craig Altobello

Look closely and you'll see that artist Craig Altobello's images are meticulously crafted with thin wood pieces of contrasting colors, grains and textures. &emsp;The Peterborough, New Hampshire artist, has refined his skill in the ancient process of "marquetry" — creating images using intricate inlaid pieces cut from wood veneers to insert into preconceived designs. &emsp;"Like painters work with paints, pieces of lumber become my palette," he says. &emsp;Hiking, climbing and travel experiences bring him inspiration from the natural world he depicts. &emsp;His process includes many steps, first gathering wood from various tree species, like salvaging local fallen trees. Other pieces are leftovers from a local artisan who builds spiral staircases for his clients in New York City. &emsp;Complex burls — rounded, gnarled bumps that grow on trees' trunks in response to stressors — are another raw material, and he searches through piles of possibilities at lumberyards for interesting patterns and details. &emsp;He slices 1/16th-inch veneers from the wood and organizes them by different species, color, grain patterns and what they may suggest (like wings or sky). On his website, he explains that there's a remarkable range of color and grain patterns in wood, even within the same species. He uses their natural color. &emsp;"It's all about matching the character of the wood with the essence of the image I'm trying to make," he explains. For example, sycamore can resemble bird feathers. &emsp;Altobello does an original sketch, then uses tracing and carbon paper to transfer the design to a background veneer, which is stacked below the piece, and a shape is cut from it. &emsp;A small, precise jigsaw blade cuts the image and opening simultaneously on an angle. This gives them beveled edges to insert the image from beneath the opening for an exact fit. &emsp;He uses "sand shading" — dipping an edge of an inlay piece into hot sand to darken it and add visual depth, he notes. &emsp;Layers of plywood, hardwood and glue complete the piece; a vacuum press squeezes them together. Then, home-made shellac and a coat of beeswax are applied. &emsp;Altobello previously learned to make fine furniture from Thomas Moser of Maine in 1978 and other workshops. Fine furniture making didn't prove lucrative, so he taught science at Henniker Middle School in New Hampshire. &emsp;He combined writing and art with science, guiding students to experiment with making unique designs on paper using imaginative methods. They created collages and paired poems to describe their learning experiences. &emsp;"I came home one weekend and thought, I can do this with wood," he says, adding that he then studied marquetry techniques at The College of the Redwoods in Mendocino, California. &emsp;Fifteen years of experience taught him what to expect from wood, such as the darkening of particular species over time. &emsp;Altobello is a juried member of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen who participates in area shows. &emsp;He says of trees, "what they live through defines their character," like sun, soil, ice and snow. He calls the story hidden beneath the bark, "beautiful and forever astonishing."