the spalted maple dining table

 we delivered the spalted maple dining table today .. we've been working on it for a couple 

of weeks now, along with the coffee table in the previous post.  

luckily the elevator was of a generous size ..

here's it is in the shop

cad drawing with two base choices

in process .. the clients wanted some 'fairly straight', not crazy edges ..

close up of the figure and clear fill for the center hole

next up a couple of claro walnut projects ...

a spalted maple coffee table

we are wrapping up a spalted maple coffee table later today ...

i've had this piece on the wall of the finish room for about 10 years now, and surprisingly, the log stacked up in the first photo is from the same tree.  a locally renowned artist/woodcarver, porter brown, gave me the piece above and some other slabs before he died about 6 or seven years ago.  recently his daughter offered to sell me what was left, which is what you see in the top picture ... it went through hurricane irene and was covered by water and mud, but has dried out nicely in the last 5 years.  we've got a dining table that is nearly finished too and i'll post photos of that later this week.

i've got another coffee table slab left, and it's looking for a home ..

cad drawing

first coat of finish .. dramatic change

1.5 x 3" satin steel tube base by sam

i will post pictures of the finished table later ... in the meantime, here is a photo of two pieces i made about 10 years ago from the original slabs that porter gave me.

the milton avery show at the bennington museum

after a guild of vermont furniture makers meeting at ray finan's shop in south arlington, i continued south to the bennington museum to see the milton avery show.  really glad i did.  milton avery was, according to wikipedia 'seminal to American abstract painting—while his work is clearly representational, it focuses on color relations and is not concerned with creating the illusion of depth as most conventional Western painting since the Renaissance has. Avery was often thought of as an American Matisse, especially because of his colorful and innovative landscape paintings. His poetic, bold and creative use of drawing and color set him apart from more conventional painting of his era. Early in his career, his work was considered too radical for being too abstract; when Abstract Expressionism became dominant his work was overlooked, as being too representational. read the full bio here  avery was a big influence on mark rothko and adolph gottlieb as well as others of the early abrstact expressionist movement. 

click the photos to enlarge them ...

 he also spent a number of summers just up the road in rawsonville and jamaica, vermont. 

nature scenes from pikes falls and ball mountain

loved this one ..  a self portrait

the show included a nice selection of his sketchbooks combined with his later studio interpretations of those sketches into paintings

the center and right hand paintings are interpretations from the same sketch above them

a while i was there, i also got to visit with a piece i made for the museum about 20 years ago .. 

still lookin good

labor day

ahhh .. labor day ... dahlia time ... a time of reflection ... common wisdom bills it as 'the end of summer'.  here in vermont, it's the beginning of what is often 6 weeks of the most spectacular and beautiful weather anywhere.  crispy nights with occasional frost, warm clear days, the leaves change, the days get shorter .. all that, and more. it's been a cinderella at summer so far.  hot, but not too hot, dry, but the vegetables and farmer's corn and alfalfa are as good as ever, sunny, not too many clouds, lots of golf and tennis ... it's been great!

below are a few photos of the nature highlights around the old homestead ...
click the photos to enlarge them ... 

day lillies by the shop

lilly seasonat the house in july

kit's 'purple' garden, end of june .. lupins ..

 what happens when you stop eating the asparagus

 wild chanterelles

 poppies

a couple of paintings

 in july, kit's garden starts to kick in ..

 the three above are from 'my seat by the pond'

 my seat by the pond .. a little weather drama ..

tomatoes!

garlic!

 golf!

new pottery

we wash the convertible once in a while, whether it needs it or not ...

and now we are 'winding down' with the kiss me over the garden gates up to about 8 or 9'

 and the papermakers are finished with their nest

zinnias!

  the shower season will wind down soon .

black eyed susans .. fall is near ..

see that red maple out there?  all over but the shoutin' 

get out and enjoy it!