Long Ago and Far Away

 Long Ago and Far Away

last summer, some long time friends closed their store in manchester

after 7 days a week for 38 years, and moved to an online version

at a newly constructed building at their house nearby.  

while visiting Grant after some Achilles tendon surgery

he and Betsy mentioned that  they felt that their new building was

'a little plain', and asked me 'what do you think?'

i had the same problem with a blank wall at my shop,

and over the years i have added some random elements

to 'spruce it up'

a piece of ash, left over from the curved benches

and a blade from a big crosscut saw ...

that seemed like enough, so i never added the cutter bar

that hung vertically off to the side there ...

i had some cherry on hand from a curved log i had sawed

about 10 or 15 years ago and, while i have some ideas,

i still have six or s even slabs left, plus another similar log.

we then did some noodling ...

and some mock ups

the pointy thing seemed 'not right' and they wanted to use the 'globe'

from the sign on their store ... i added the cutter bar ... BINGO!

 i went up Thursday and hung it up

 big hit!

 

what to do ... what to do

well, friday afternoons ... you just never know what might happen ... as we were cleaning up, somone put this claro slab cutoff out on the porch just as i happened to go out the door to the finish room. this piece has been hanging around the end of the sander for oh, a year or so? who knows. anyway, i suddently had this urge to clone it by resawing it with a chainsaw. kind of like the rubber stamp tool in photoshop. so i did. jim was johnny on the spot with the photos .... now comes the hard part ... what's the 'best' thing to do with them ??? comments? we're open to suggestions ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
1st obvious arrangement with the curving negative space ...
not so obvious, but maybe cool on the wall ... or, as a table with a glass top?
free standing 'swans'
have a good weekend ....
other chainsaw adventures

Stuff, Ready To Go Right Now

For the past several years, I have been sort of out of the show circuit for a number of reasons. Too busy being the main one ... This year, however, I got into it again a bit. As a result I have a number of 'show's over' pieces that I would like to move to new homes. My house is full. My office is to the brim ... I'm planning some more new pieces .... Stuff like that .... Anyway, the line up is below ... I'll post some prices but we'll consider reasonable offers too ... Check them out. If they're not for you, maybe you know someone ... Thanks ... Click the photos to enlarge them ...

The mahogany console above is part of a series of Empire inspired consoles we made from about 2003 to 2005. I must have sold 8 or 9 of them then. This one I made for one of the last shows I did and I still have it now .... Reduced from its original $3950. price to $2950. Champlain Black marble top .... It's 20 x 52 x 32 high and has a matching mirror too ....
The table and chairs here are part of our 'Bethlehem Steel' series and they are on display for the holidays at Long Ago and Far Away in Manchester Center, Vermont ... Stop in there this coming Thanksgiving weekend for the annual Denise and Dawn Wallace show/sale of Native American jewelry... The table is $3500., the chairs are $950. each and the set price is $8500. for everything .... Free delivery in 75 mile radius ...

'Bridges' Bench .... Made by Sam and Will and I for the 'State of Craft' show at the Bennington Museum this spring and summer ... celebrating 50 years of craft in Vermont ...
More info on this piece here +/- 52 x 15 x 18 $2450.
I've got several chairs like this one .. I've got one exactly like this one except it's a rocker ..
painted mdf with natural mahogany arms .... $1275.
I've also got a blue one in solid painted mahogany with blue canvas cushions ... (very comfy and substantial) $1750. And a red mdf rocker and a blue mdf straight ... photos available ... more info here ... l
And this is a prototype painted and carved bench ... It's got some blue leather on it now with a little flaw in the leather finish ... priced to move ... $750. as is or with new leather or fabric ... cool item.
SOLD !
An indoor/outdoor chestnut and painted steel bench ... a big one .. 15 x 72 x 17 high $1450. 'The skinny console' ... This was kind of a joke piece we did for the Woodstock show but I've almost sold it several times since ... Fun in person, and in the right narrow space it will be really effective as an accent piece ... English elm and natural finished forged steel .. $750.
And I have this big slab of beautiful claro walnut ... Just waiting to be a dining table, coffee table or desk ... +/- 48 -50 wide by about 9' long x 1.5" thick ... spectacular grain ... $2900. plus your base ... Looks like I;ve got another piece in the foreground there .. It's a piece of birch burl and I'm going to add a walnut shelf to it and make a wall hung piece ...

Jewelry ... As usual, Kit has a number of pieces of fine handmade jewelry in gold and silver, from the high end to the low .... lots of earrings too. Give her a call at 802 867 0139 ....
Beach stones ....
She also takes custom orders and does repairs and remodeling to antique jewelry ...

Sculptures ... I've been dabbling in sculpture as a 'hobby' for the last year or two and have been surprised to sell a few of them ... I've got a million designs and I'm always ready to start the next one ...
Animal Rhythms #1 .. We've made 4 versions of this sculpture, indoor, outdoor,small, wood, steel ... This is the original in painted mdf .. made for indoors, floor mount as shown or wall mount on 'hinge' brackets allowing for adjustable shadows ... $2450. as shown
Sunrise/Sunset ...painted wood and rusted steel ... indoor or outdoor ... $1500.
The redwood slabs ... I go back and forth between sell these/don't sell these ... The price is high, but the wood is spectacular !!!! they can also be mounted vertical .. indoors only
Right slab close up
Left slab ... click these pictures to see the wood details ... $3000. plus delivery and hanging .. Dancer #1 ... welded steel and locust ... indoors or out ... $1500. about 32 x 9'
'Revolving Doors' Photo above is the wood prototype ... Steel version is ready to hang in a new location ... painted as above (sort of) ... Revolves in the wind and at times, disappears ... Raw steel on the shop floor ... $1850. plus installation in your trees or house ...
'Double Discs' Two slices of a 105 year old silver maple branch ... from the one time largest silver maple in Vermont. lit with dimmable strip lights ... looks great at night .. indoors or covered porch ... very cool ... $850.
And these two curved pieces of thick ash are just aching to be a pair of benches or some kind of vertical 'wing' sculpture ...

Interested in any of this stuff? Give me a call at 802 867 5541 day ... 802 867 0139 .. night ... I'd love to load any of these pieces up for you tomorrow ....

Redwood

Sometimes you have stuff around that you knew was extraordinary when you first discovered it, and then, somehow, it becomes part of the scenery and well, it's just there. Like these two pieces of redwood burl hanging on the wall of the shop. They caught my eye at Berkshire Products in Massachusetts, maybe 5 years ago and I had them on a shelf for a year or two, waiting for a worthy project ... One day, we sanded them up and oiled them thinking someone would come along and be inspired and they looked so great, that I was inspired. I made a couple of french cleats and hung them on the wall ... Time passed and they got attention every once in a while. A few people tried to buy them and I answered that I would 'think about the price', but really, I think, they just belong there. We dusted them off and oiled them up about a month ago and they looked great ... Good for another couple years... Click the pictures to enlarge them ... Amazing wood ... Who knows how old ?
A couple of black mahogany bedside tables we delivered to Boston last week on Will's bench
Another close up
Right side
Left side .... Kind of humbling actually .... Can't paint like that ...

Sculptures

One of my blog readers asked about the 'wood that looks like wings' on the wall in one of my blog photos ... It's a pair of bookmatched redwood burl slabs, each about 28" high x 8' long ... I bought them not knowing what I was going to do with them and now I think doing nothing to them is the best ... They also look cool hung vertically, points up ... They also look cooler when they're just oiled like in this picture ... Here are a couple other sculpture pictures .. click the images to enlarge them ...

painted 3/4" steel

consecutive silver maple slabs

spalted maple 30 w x 54 high

Sunset/Sunrise ... A New Sculpture

Sunday, March 29th .... Yesterday was about the best possible of the early spring days, 65 degrees and sunny, where you want to be outside just every second, followed by today when it was mostly cloudy with occasional cloudbursts and showers, high in the 40's. I've been reading this sort of tedious, sort of interesting book, called 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's about the power of unforeseen and unpredictable events (prescient I guess this guy is since it was published in 2007). Two of its more interesting (to me) premises are #1. the thought that the daily news just reinforces our views and can close our minds to new ideas, an interesting idea to someone who has spent a not small part of his life reading The New York Times, and #2.,that prediciting the future is a nearly useless, wasted effort.. That hit close to home on my woodworking estimates. I can make a plan with my morning coffee and it can go out the window 10 minutes after I get to the shop. Happens time and time again. The Black Swan guy uses as an example the Sydney Opera House that was supposed to open in 1963 at a cost of 7 million Australian $. It actually opened around 1973 at a cost of 104 million Australian $. Even I'm not that bad. So today, in honor of premise #1, for the first time I can remember, I made a point of not buying the Sunday Times and of not sitting on the couch and reading it. I decided instead to make a new sculpture. It's been rattling around the metalshop in parts and pieces for a month or so and today was just its day I guess. We get our fair share of good old red sunsets here, at least when the leaves are off the trees and after about 12 years or so of them, they bore into your brain and show up in your sketch book when you least expect them, like here, back in November. Anyway, there's not much to my sculpture ... some 1.25" solid steel square stock that will eventually turn a nice rusty orange out in the rain, some kind of base and a red/orange (or maybe gold leaf) sun/moon motif. The one in the picture's spray painted plywood. I mocked up the base today using some pressure treated 2 x 12's, cut on the cnc, and later, I'll probably use some locust planks I have stickered and drying. I cut two different hole patterns but didn't have enough steel verticals to mock up the alternative, dual sided concept. Maybe next Sunday I'll finish it if I can truly kick the newspaper habit ... We'll see ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ...

From my sketchbook ... 11/7/08

The temporarily 'finished' piece ... Just before dark Sunday evening ... high ISO digital photography is your friend .. available light, ISO 1000

Showing the alternate double sided pattern

Cutting the square holes on the CNC

Lining up the assembly with a short steel and a framing square ...