the crowbar !

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.

kristian placed the ebony on a piece of mdf in a grid with

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 ..

there are a few mirrors

a paneled back for the view from the balcony

an unfinished panel close up

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!

old man project ... volume 6

 ok, now it is May 2025 and time is moving on ... 

so, i will quote james mcmurtry here:

 

at this point i have finished my 'retirement project',

 a new building for Will's machine tools ...

  Kristian is now taking over all the new requests for

 furniture that come in from both old and new clients,

and i am in the slow process of  'cleaning up my mess' ...

i spent several days in the basement of the shop organizing

patterns and drawings, jigs and fixtures. models and mockups,

 and a bunch of random slabs and other pieces of wood. 

i did the same in the attic of the garage at the house and there i

discovered a huge box of sketchbooks that have been accumulating

for over 45 years ... 

they have now been browsed ( quite a trip that was )

and arranged in chronological order with 

clients names noted on the spines ...

there are also slide shows at that link with 

concept sketches and the relevant completed

projects over the years ...

more on all this later from the 'west dorset indsutrial park'