£10,500
If you love to play, you will know that feeling of being sucked into a game, with no hope of escape until it is over. My design recreates that spiralling sensation of falling into the vortex, where nothing else matters apart from your next move.
Alexandra LLewellyn
The concentric design is highly complex, with the circles comprising hundreds of slices of wood, selected according to the direction and quality of the grain. Each piece is cut by the marquetry artist so that the patterning on the woods radiates outwards within the circle, highlighting the juxtaposition between the different woods and grains.
Like the growth rings that tell the age of a tree or the ripples when a stone is dropped in water, Alexandra’s radiating concentric circles reflect the hypnotic pull of gaming – that whirling vortex of emotions you experience when you are fully concentrating, inescapably absorbed in the moment.
Expertly aligned to intersect the concentric circles without interrupting their flow, the triangles on the playing surface are crafted from different inlaid natural woods – sycamore, ash, fumed eucalyptus, American black walnut and walnut burr – selected by Alexandra to contrast with the vibrant coloured woods on the board.
Touched by nine different workshops in the UK, the Vortex backgammon set is a celebration of time-honoured crafts. Brought to life by leading artists in their fields, including an authority in the rare handcraft of marquetry, a master joiner, a leather artist and a specialist in hand-lacquering, with a choice of semi-precious playing pieces: vivid blue lapis lazuli, which is believed to bring deep peace, and soothing and calming mother of pearl.
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