Isle of Lewis Wall Chessboard (Isle of Lewis Chessmen inspired)
Wonderful Isle of Lewis Chessmen
I’m quite keen on chess, but I’m no expert by any means. Quite randomly I was looking into the history of chess (I often look up stuff just out of curiosity) and stumbled on the beautiful Isle of Lewis Chessmen.
I was intrigued by the pieces and thought they looked wonderful, intriguing, and tactile. They conjure up a real mediaeval battle – quite unlike any other chess set I’ve seen, and the detail on them is very impressive – especially considering they’re 12th century – 800 years old – and carved out of walrus ivory! (Ethically I’m not impressed with the material but I am impressed with the craftsmanship.)
I love to have beautiful things in my house, and if they’re functional that’s even better – so I set about seeing how expensive a set would be. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a full-sized resin set costs under £100 (2018 price). There were more expensive sets but they were out of my budget at the time (and didn’t look much better). The set came with a rather disappointing, unbefitting, cardboard chessboard, but I thought I could get (or make) a better one later…
As chess pieces go they were quite big – about 3½” (9cm) high – and reassuringly heavy (the heaviest piece, the king, was 98g – a little less than the official replica copies from the original National Museum of Scotland’s set @ 126g). The pieces were very nice but there was a plasticky look and feel to them. Nevertheless, I liked them and played a few games on the board that they came with.
Why choose a wall-mounted chess board?
The board that came with my chess set was quite big (about 19″ (47cm) – with the squares about 2″). Devoting a table to a chess match for several days is a bit of a problem in most households, and obviously there is a risk of pieces being accidentally knocked over – with the serious additional problem of not knowing where the pieces were before. An intense chess battle of several days could be obliterated by someone simply bumping into the table – and so I started to think of alternative ideas…
I considered a wall-mounted chessboard – because this would be out of the way, would take up no floor or table space, and in theory would be far less prone to accidents. How often do people bump into wall-mounted pictures…?
I’d never seen a real wall-mounted chessboard before – only pictures – and started looking online to see what was available. Obviously it would have to be quite big because each square would have to be big enough for the tallest of the Isle of Lewis Chessmen pieces – the King (at nearly 3 ½”) – so about 4″ (10cm) squares are required…
I looked high and low but couldn’t fine a nice large enough wall-mounted chessboard. The main thing I disliked about most of the chessboards I found was that the squares weren’t square – they were rectangular – taller than they were wide! I thought this was very strange indeed and really didn’t like the look of them – they grated with my sense of aesthetics! So I parked the idea and thought of making my own some day…
Thoughts about making my own wall chessboard
I wanted to buy a nice wall-mounted chessboard but couldn’t find one I liked. I have to really like something for it to get room in my house…! I didn’t want to design and make my own – that would take a lot of time and money! (I make lots of things and I know that the first time you make anything it takes a lot more time and effort than expected because you usually have to buy and/or make tools and templates to help you make the thing with – as well as research and purchase all the materials – and possibly learn new techniques.)
Months passed. I had some ideas about buying pre-cut square pieces of two different types of wood (in contrasting light and dark shades) – but this didn’t particularly inspire me. Also I didn’t think the chess pieces would stand out very clearly because their colour is quite woody… And I couldn’t think how I could do the shelves – I just felt that they should be transparent/clear…
I decide to try to make a beautiful wall-mounted chessboard
I thought over a period of several weeks about the squares – I felt these were crux of the problem – and the cornerstone of the design. Out of thin air it came to me: ceramic tiles! Black and white square ceramic tiles! It was so obvious! They are naturally square and their colour and texture wonderfully contrasts with the chess pieces. Naturally I had technical challenges: what to mount the tiles on, how to make shelves (or compartments), letters and numbers around the edge, etc. Nevertheless, I felt the urge and inspiration to make a beautiful wall-mounted chessboard – and I had a very inspiring starting point…
I saw symmetry, maths, patterns in the chessboard, and I wanted to incorporate twelfth/thirteenth-century ideas into it – as if the board was designed when the Lewis Chessmen were made…
This is my first attempt :-
So far so good. It’s nice, functional, but it’s just a chessboard… While there is nothing more that can be done to the squares themselves, somehow it needs to be made special/beautiful…
I feel it should have letters and numbers around the border (A-H & 1-8) – and here I can try to add some nice design… I thought about typefaces, materials, and size/scale around the edge of the board – but also about the structural strength of it – because the board is already quite heavy (about 30kg) – being tiled on some very heavy deep plywood (so it won’t warp) – and the border will be the only practical way of lifting it…
So, while there was a serious practical/structural challenge, thinking about the aesthetics preoccupied me for a long time. I plumped for a solid oak boarder – exactly the width of a chess square – for it’s strength and beauty – with raised letters and numbers made of the same material. The oak I chose is from sustainable sources (as is the deep plywood base) and has (for me at least) a lovely block grain structure that adds a wide variety of tones, and contrasts beautifully with the typeface.
Here is the finished first design :-
Also I had the idea of adding a large-ish toughened glass shelf for putting taken pieces on.
It’s not perfect but I’m very happy with this design. It’s total weight is about 50kg and so it needed a very strong bracket to mount it on the wall!
Typeface Tribute
I chose a font which I believe may have been in use in 12th – 13th century Scotland – when my imaginary chessboard was designed.
It’s not until you cut, carve, and smooth every curve of all the letters and numbers – and orientate, glue, and oil all the facing sides – that you appreciate all the work and aesthetics that goes into designing a typeface. And to think they had this skill and artistry all those years ago beggars belief…
We will probably never know who designed this typeface, but whomsoever it was, they have my deepest respect and thanks. This typeface is at the core of my chessboard design. I’ve added a tiny personal touch by literally adding a dimension – to give it depth (and existence…). This accentuates the typeface’s delightful sensual shapes and curves – and changes with light arriving from different directions. In some very real sense the board – with the typeface being at it’s core – takes on many different forms depending on the light…
It’s curious to think that my implementation of the typeface doesn’t really exist! It exists only in the shadows from directional light – and is helped by the subtle contrast between the oak grain pattern of the letter and number cut-outs – and the background timber. My alphanumerics primarily owe their visibility to the shadows they cast…
Whose turn is it?!
With a wall-mounted chessboard games can readily take as long as is required because there is no pressure on space. With this in mind I started to think how best to show who’s turn it is? Surprisingly this took a couple of months to solve (off and on – not solidly!) – during which I thought of many different ideas: pointers, sliders, etc. But I wanted something simple, beautiful, “mathematical”, and easy to make – and something perhaps befitting of the 12/13th century. In the end I came up with the simple idea of a black and white disc (with black on one side and white on the other) – and a tight-cut hole to display and hold it – tight enough for it to stay in by itself – and can be easily taken out and turned around to indicate whose turn it is (see below).
So here is the final signed Artist Proof (1 of 2) black and white version :-
Might others like to have one of these Chessboards?
It was never my intention to make a chessboard – let alone for other people. But why not, I thought…? Many people who have seen it have said how much they like it. I make art for other people. Is my chessboard art…? Does art have to be completely non-functional…? I thought of putting the whole set in clear resin – so that the pieces couldn’t be moved – and call it: “This is not a Chess set” (or chessboard?). Perversely that probably would be acceptable as art – but is a functional chessboard art…?
Duchamp said if an artist calls something art then it is art – hence his urinal – called “Fountain” (1917) – a completely un-made-by-an-artist artefact. Whether you agree with him or not is an entirely different matter…! I think of myself as an artist so I can call my chessboard “art”… I suppose that if an artist designs and hand-makes something – as opposed to a factory or sweatshop making it – then that qualifies as art…? But that is not to say that everything an artist makes is art…
This chessboard for me is an object of beauty and I have put as much thought, time, and effort into designing and making this as I have put into most of my other (unequivocal) art works. But it doesn’t really matter to me if they are considered art or not, I have decided to share them… At the very least it is a chessboard designed and made by an artist…
And I will submit it to next years’ Royal Academy Summer Exhibition to see what my peers think of it…
Upgrade of the Chess set + change the board colours
I thought: if I’m going to sell my chessboards then I really should sell them with chess sets befitting of them. And the best – in my humble opinion – are the sets from the Scottish National Museums. So I bought a set.
The “white” pieces are ivory/cream coloured – and show up very well against the while or black tiles. However, it struck me immediately that the dark/black pieces of this new set were really dark – much darker than the cheaper set I originally bought (see photo below) – and they don’t show up very well at all against the jet-black squares of my chessboard! This got me thinking about having a different colour for the “black” squares – because I can’t change the colour of the pieces…
Choosing a colour is a very difficult challenge – especially of tiles! Feeling red would be the best substitute for black squares, I searched for what must have been weeks, and had various sample tiles sent to me – because the web and a computer screen is not the ideal way to see colours accurately. Eventually I found a red I liked and that worked well with the rest of the colours. (Getting the tiles in quantity was a whole different challenge…!)
White pieces against red and white ceramic tiles
Another minor change was to have the glass shelve at the bottom (the original shelf was put at the top more of as afterthought because I had space there). This is the 2nd and final signed artist proof (with the Scottish National Museums‘ Isle of Lewis Chess pieces) :-
Diary Of An Artist 