Dinah Parker - Craft + Restoration

These handcut puzzles are one-of-a-kind interlocking critters cut and finished in downtown Santa Barbara. All are either mdf or plywood, images sourced from found magazines or art books. Commissions are currently closed, but please don’t hesitate to reach out with any comments or questions! dinah.parker@gmail.com or (805)636-6246

A full portfolio of all puzzles can be found on Instagram @moremesses

A well loved vase now back in use. Repaired with ship epoxy.

Most adhesives simply give out at some point. The large turquoise chunks decorating this jug were all knocked off. Re-assembly required careful cleaning.

The last time this chair was worked on, the footrest was nowhere to be found! The piece was re-glued and re-finished, and the holes for the foot rest plugged with a dowel. 

When our friend eventually came across the footrest, she brought the chair back to us to have it replaced. As the picture shows, the old finish was incredibly damaged. 

A delicate little writing desk, clearly used (which I love), came to me in need of a little tlc.

Here nothing particularly dramatic was done - some minor structural repair, a fair amount of touch-up, and some wax.

An important consideration, with this kind of work, is always how much a client is willing to invest in a piece. Often the time it would take to make an object as good as it possibly could be is well out of their price range, and more than the piece itself is worth. In those cases, there's often a middle route, a sprucing up and re-setting that is much more affordable, and still leaves the object in better shape than it came in. This project is a great example of that.

Here's a caning project! This beautiful (big!) porch rocker was part of a set of six, passed down from my clients father, one to each child. It was hand-made in his hometown, and caned originally by the carpenter. Cane, however, wears out much more quickly than wood. 

The fresh cane color you see here, light and almost greenish, fades over the years to the rich honey color we're more familiar with. Sometimes it's necessary to tint fresh cane, but wiser to simply live with the new, fresh, color and let it deepen naturally.

This herringbone pattern is very strong, woven with binder cane. I've included some detail images of the simple + satisfying pattern.

This pot came to me in 40 separate chips as simply a practice project - I'd expressed interest in honing my skills in the strange clamping practices often necessary for gluing dramatically broken ceramics, and this became that practice. These are some "after" pictures of a very complicated process of clamping (and patience).

The glue used for this is entirely reversible, an important consideration in most restoration work, especially when the history of the object may be more interesting than you currently know. By using glue that can be easily removed, you're helping anyone who comes along later to do more thorough work than you're able to at the time.

Although I don't know much about this pot, what I can tell led me to stop at gluing it up, and not continuing on to fill the losses until I learnt more. It is likely that this is simply an old (but not very old) tourist copy of very old ceramics from the region. However, the firing marks on the bottom, and the irregularity and asymmetry in the body and design could perhaps mean that this is, in fact, very old. 

A puzzle! A beautiful antique rosewood box that had been broken for quite awhile before making it to the shop. Even figuring out what went where, on which nested level or which little rectangular slat was a wall and which was part of a box took time! These photos show them after they'd been organized and partly cleaned, and then after thorough cleaning and extensive structural repair.

This box will now be put on display as part of a larger private collection of Asian Art. Notice the sweet little scissors and game pieces! 

This little guy came to me after years of uv damage, spilled liquids, and general hard living. After a manual stripping and some careful french polishing, we're back to it's original sheen!

A well-loved papier mache wastepaper basket made it to the shop- delaminating and showing signs of age.

Some carefully applied reversible glue slipped between the exposed layers of paper, and serious clamping, left this in great shape - ready to be used in daily life again! Some minor touch-up necessary to distract

This sweet little teapot came to me with a falling apart handle - the normal wear and tear had caused cracking in the cane, completely understandable after so many years in use!

An interesting practice in reconstructing a pattern, graceful puzzle when the material to be replaced is still around.  After rewinding the handle with fresh cane, it was touched up to match the honey color of older cane.

A lovely physicians figure - used for years to protect wealthy women's privacy when seeking treatment. Cleaned and re-mounted.

A quick project - tricky to clamp!

Lovely waxy glaze on this dropped candle holder. 

A vase from a favorite client. Here's a quick illustration of the process to deal with stress fractures in dropped ceramics. 

This graceful bookshelf was found by a friend on a curb- and then left in a wet garage for far too long! With some new finish, and detailing, and structural repair, it's now ready to be useful, and loved, again.

The difference a good scrub and a fresh finish can make. 

This garden ornament was brought to me with two mismatched and wonky eyes, deemed unnerving. Now she's much more friendly!

Three big areas of damage were treated.

Beautiful antique horse in rough shape. Some hide glue and leather replacement.

A dramatic example of a piece becoming whole again!