long story coming here …
I made the drawing below in 2010.
Somewhere I have a picture of the two crows I photographed
in the snow in Burlington, VT. I had recently stumbled over the drawing a few days
before I got an email from a long time client who was looking for
a ‘bar cabinet’ ... on a whim I sent him the 'crowbar' sketch …
The next day he sent me a picture of a crow on his balcony,
and he decided that ‘the word was out’!
We were on … click the pictures to enlarge them ...
next came the cad drawings
after a few back and forths on the overall layout,
we started to make up some sample panels
this was the first ‘real panel’ attempt …
along with the clients, we were working with
an interior designer, Ashli Mizell, who suggested smaller crows
in the distance, and ‘softer mountains’. she helpfully included
some mountain images that we incorporated into the final design.
as we moved along, we made a full size mock-up
and added our colored pencil crow cad drawings …
and then we started work on the crows …
there are between 40 and 50 individual pieces of ebony in each crow.
for the ebony, we were able to use 3” long fretboard cutoffs from Will’s
stash which created feathers of slightly different colors that are
easier to see in person than in the photos of the finished piece.
the crow on the right is our version of clients' balcony crow.
double sticky tape and cut the part for the crows from them
on the cnc ... it took about a dozen of will's variegated blocks
and some other larger pieces of ebony to get all the pieces ...
we chose mahogany for the mountains, greenish poplar for
the ‘fields’,and flaky quartersawn sycamore for the sky.
the three main woods are all slightly different thicknesses, which
create a bit of depth and gave us a place to add some black over
green painted borders. that led to a discussion of what to use for the top
of the bar, and we chose some Vermont quarried verde antique with both
black and green colors inherent in the stone. pretty stunning stuff!
all together now!
a couple more here ..
a paneled back for the view from the balcony
there were a few files
i have a long time thing for crows, and often use them to
decorate my pottery ...
i'd also like to thank karen bonderchuk for her lovely book, 'a crow a day',
which i consulted as we got underway, and as we went along ...
crow anatomy consultant, though she didn't know it til now !
thanks karen!