Slices of Wood Etched With Whimsical Nature-Inspired Designs

Chicago-based artist Zoe Feast is a maker with many talents. Although she’s best known for her playful fabric designs, the artist has recently decided to create her spirited motifs on a different medium. Her whimsical illustrations can now be found on slices of wood. The materials for this collection come from a habit restoration project, for which she and a team of volunteers cleared nonnative plants to return the land back to a prairie state. Feast gives these foraged pieces new life by etching delicate designs on their surface.

From densely packed botanical patterns to playful animal designs, these prints pair perfectly with the textured appearance of the wood. Although Feast doesn't normally work in this medium, she was inspired to do so after visiting her local library. “My local library has a maker’s center and I was inspired to do something with my patterns after seeing their laser etching machine. I get the wood from a local forest preserve where I volunteer,” Feast tells My Modern Met. “The wood is part of the material that we clear. The fact that I can use it to make beautiful objects is perfect.”

Each of the precise etchings originated as Feast's fabric patterns. “A lot of my inspiration comes from nature—the first fabric collection I have on Spoonflower—Prairie Beauty was directly inspired by the work I was doing with my habitat restoration team,” she adds. Perhaps as a result of this, the pairing of wood and repeating patterns seems like a match made in heaven, as each piece seems like it was made to be that way.

A selection of Feast's original etchings will go on auction on February 20,2023. You can purchase them via her website, and find Feast's fabric patterns on Spoonflower. Be sure to follow the artist on Instagram to keep up to date with her latest projects.