Demilune Buffet

This one was definitely filed under "stepping up to the challenge". This past client had been scouring the planet to find a piece that matched what she envisioned, and after realizing that she wasn't going to find the right size, configuration and quality in an antique, she recalled my craftsmanship and made the call. She provided me with a page ripped out of Architectural Digest and a sketch of how she wanted the three dimensions altered, and the door / drawer layout changed to become a handsome bar. Other than that, it was "make this." Or almost... I didn't trust that the desired dimensions were going to really sing; I thought that the depth was possibly needing tweaking, so I made a full scale model, complete with molded doors. My suspicions were right, it was just a little too tubby, overhanging the front legs 5/8" more than my eye wanted. With this confirmed, I had all I needed to know to make the piece, it was just a long series of steps in making templates, jigs, fitting pieces and executing perfect "cabinet math", and unrelenting attention to detail. From the beginning, I recognized that the guys originally making these pieces didn't have my tools or my electricity, therefore there was no whining. Good thing I prepared myself that way, because it was very demanding. It's made with air dried black walnut, French burled walnut veneer, handmade holy and ebony inlay strips. It features marquetry work on the top that is booked matched with banding radiating out on the non-geometric curve. The burled veneer was exceptional and came with the added story that it had come from Normandy, and that's why there were bullet holes grown over in it,(!)...an even better reason to shut up and stop whining. The doors and drawer also have a diagonal radiating banding outside of the bent inlay, and the beading on the doors follows the curve. The legs are hexagonal tapered posts with fluting. I even had to make a special mold to bend and glue the wood for the single curved inlay in the top.   After this project, I was happy when my wife handed me a roller to paint the living room. "No problem, give me a barn to paint, it's time to give the brain a rest!"   I got through it, and everyone came out the other side alive. I didn't doubt that I could do it, and it set a new marker in my mental index of what I'm prepared to do. You will have to pay me I might add though.   Cheers!    

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Shaker Entertainment Unit

The Shaker style is the one "country style" that cuts right to the pure geometrics and proportions. If you understand its zone, and don't start messing with its purity by adding decorative "details", and concentrate on the lines, space and balance, it'll get you to that Zen place successfully. It can blend with contemporary styles quite well too. This piece was made with air dried cherry that had been stacked in the customer's shed for 7 years or so, waiting for someone like me to come along. Cherry (and walnut too) is one of those woods that is always better air dried, rather than kiln dried,  because the colour doesn't drip out in the drying process and remains rich and true. These pictures were taken on delivery, and soon after, the natural colour of the cherry started to punch out once the natural light came in through the windows.

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Quilted Maple End Tables

If a larger project calls for veneer work, I always buy more than I need. Partly for waste allowance, but mostly so that I have some left over to play with. This quilted maple was a rare find, so this was the case again, and I wish I had been able to get much more. Quality quilted maple with a consistent, pleasant pattern is more rare than curly maple or birdseye maple. The cherry legs, edging on the top and beading along the curved aprons brings out the warm tan tones in the depth of the quilted pattern. I think it was the most I ever paid for veneer, but worth every penny. Knowing what goes into finding and selecting this kind of wood makes me always wonder why it doesn't cost even more. This pair sold at the opening of my show at the Mad and Noisy Gallery.

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Liquor Cabinet 2

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Not too long after getting my own studio in Oakville, I stumbled upon someone who was bent on having a significant piece of furniture created to go in the front window of their house, by the baby grand. People like this don't come around often, so I was very excited. However, at first she wanted me to remake my Liquor Cabinet 1 (see post below), so I had to politely ask her if she'd let me move forward from that design to where I was thinking at the time. She agreed. Wow.  I remember going through my sketch book of abstract shapes, and mashing lines together with some close up photos of objects taken on a trip to Germany.
So what do you get? Well, the arched section is from a bowtie pasta noodle in the bowl I was holding as I paced around my office, the leg is from an old style Hoover vacuum cleaner, and the foot is from a close up shot of a goat's hoof in the Berlin Zoo. The rest of it I would call "instinctual design glue". The handles are solid ebony, nodding to their piano nearby. Solid black granite top, stainless steel tube. For the top structure to be strong enough to take it's own forces, I had to put two 1/4" aluminum plates in,  sandwiching the drawer compartment. Lots of internal bracing and careful mating of parts to pull this one off.
Peter Hogan at Sheridan College let me haul this piece in the back door of the photo studio late at night and helped me take the shot. (Perks of being a grad who shows he's making an effort, thanks Peter.) I was stubborn to have the 4x6 camera down low so that the viewer would be able to see the fit between the curved under belly and the brushed stainless steel connections. I think the camera was 25 feet back, what a lens.
Pretty wacky piece, and yet, completely functional. Going to the place in my head where this stuff happens makes me drunk without a drop.  

Liquor Cabinet 1

Liquor_cabinet_i

This is the first piece where it all "clicked" and when I realized how my creative brain operates. Really... I remember a feeling like a whole network of switches were suddenly properly aligned. Designing after that became much more interesting, attractive and obsessive at times.
I made this piece in my final year a Sheridan College. It's made of genuine South American Mahogany (the good stuff) and stainless steel rods hold the suspended cabinet in place. The drawer has hand cut dovetails, lined with a burgundy leather to accent some of the streaking in the marble. The handles were made by coring into a hunk of granite, which required many, many hours of remaking,final sizing and polishing. The design was wide open since it was a student project and didn't have to meet anyone's criteria, however I was confined by the size of the marble, which came to me via my brother's wife who's father had gotten it in Pakistan way back. This piece of marble is 20" x 40" and has some beautiful subtle colours in it. So, my only design parameters were to hold it up 34", and contain a small collection of choice liquor. The design worked out so that it would happily hold 5 bottles. When I took this picture, I raided my Dad's supply for props and in my haste in the school's photo studio, with a paper (Duh!) bag holding 5 bottles...  yeah, 3 broke on the studio floor, and man, what a plume of alcoholic gas! The worst part is that aside from eliminating 3 of my Dad's bottles in the worst possible way, there was a single malt he had brought back from a business trip from Britain, and wait... it's gets more painful... that precious bottle was mixed with white rum and some other pungent jet fuel, so the aroma was not as pleasant as if the bottles had broken on separate occasions and were not mixed together. What a smell. The whole School of Craft and Design thought there was some kind of party happening somewhere. 

 I'm happy that I hung on to this piece, but admittedly, it's very rarely properly stocked. Still looks great, and it's by the front door if there's a fire.

"As Is"

As_is

If you've been into a particular Swedish "furniture" store, you may have found yourself in an off-site type area called "As Is". This is where they put returned items, damaged goods, floor models and misc parts of furniture someone might need to complete the last purchase they made from said store... just the kind of place that inspires a guy like me to make another wacky piece to get it going at your local cocktail party.
I made this piece for my solo exhibition, along with "Really Tall..." (posted below)  to put a couple of punctuation marks in the show.
The caption for "As Is" read: "Q: Why did the table cross the road?...  A: To get back to Ikea to locate its missing parts." (No, it doesn't really make sence.)
It consists of a familiar white melamine top, and then a base that has a perfect graduating crackle laquer finish, from egg-yolk-yellow up to egg-white-white at the top, but... of course the top is obscured with feathers. I guess subconsciously, I'd love to see a chicken scurrying around Ikea causing havoc, pooping on their fabrics, knocking over shelves of 90 cent wine glasses...

The capper was putting a $49.99 price tag on it, the final joke after all my work on it.  I was very happy to have an invited repeat customer notice it on the day of the opening and snap it up.
Good times.

Really Tall, Really Red Table

Really_tall_really_red_table

 

I used my 5 year old daughter's style of labeling things to come up with a title for this piece. I made it for a solo exhibition I had in Nov 2007. It is cherry and curly maple veneer with shaded red lacquer, and with gold leaf on the underside. Because it's 8 feet tall and the underside was going to be more prominent than the top for a change, I wanted to call attention to this usually ignored area. I considered having it "decorated" with numerous wads of used chewing gum, but that starts a different dialogue, and would be kinda gross.
I still have it in our dining room, which luckily has a 9 1/2 foot ceiling. It's exactly 4 times as high as my standard cocktail tables, so if you want it, yes, 4X$. Which, with the optional $50 shelf, $50 premium finish... ummm, so that's (250 + 50 + 50) X4 = $1400 and it's yours. Bargoon.  If I started from scratch again, had to find 4 legs that were perfectly clear and dead straight etc etc, it would be a different price.

(Sold,  Christmas 2010 to a very good home.)