Marquetry expert Silas Kopf started working wood a couple of years before FWW started publishing. When the magazine came out, Silas found it straight away, and it found him. Editor John Kelsey wrote about him in issue #16 in 1979, and his work has been featured here many times since. His book, A Marquetry Odyssey, combines a history of the craft from a technical perspective with stories of Kopf’s own journey. You can read sample pages at www.silaskopf.com. He shows no signs of slowing down; if you’re wondering how he’ll be depicted in his next marquetry self-portrait, perhaps it will be in mid-air, a few thousand feet up, as he was recently on his first jump from an airplane.