



Hullo Duckies
2 Weeks have gone by that I have been able to absolve myself of monetary obligation, and have waded hip deep into the waters of self employment in the woodshop. The water is cold and crisp - but refreshing and I feel like I'm on the brink of being able to jump into the deep end soon.
One replica piece - resized and proportioned is complete. It is a coffee table version of George Nakashima's Conoid Table. His work reaches people on a level which is difficult to surmise in words - but the Conoid Table's leg system exudes a crude, structural simplicity and strength which compliments it's waverly and freeform feathered walnut top.
I knocked the size down from dining room table size for a couple of reasons. The main being that I went through one of Nakashima's original lumber suppliers over at Hearne Hardwoods in Pennsylvania to pick up a piece that concievably Nakashima would have worked on himself. This proved quite expensive and limited my options. Additionally - I selected a wood for the base that due to overlogging and rarity, is next to impossible to get in forms that are sustainably harvested. But my man Andrew over at A&M Wood Products in Ontario had a private reserve that hit the market and sold out like Radiohead Tickets. Luckily I secured approximately 24 boardfeet of the 2x4 plantation grown East Indian Rosewood - half of which I devoted to this project and half of which to the next.
It was Nakashima himself, an MIT and Harvard trained architect, who praised the riddance of drafting boards from furniture design in order to create at the hum of a sawblade at 8000 rpm. It is in this same notion in which my second project was designed. Frustration at the drawing board led me astray from being able to physically manipulate and work with the material in human proportions.
The side table/wine cabinet is named Lyric - as to suggest our baser need to create and a general and dishonest conviction that we cannot. Our makeup - greater than the powers of hereditary traits, greater than nurture - has given us a seperate brain - a hemisphere of our central nervous system, 4 pounds of highly complex matter which is devoted entirely to the acts of creation. But rarely do we allow our nonlinear dreams or irreverent desires to manifest into anything of beauty. Rarely can we rise above ego. Rarely can we shed our trepidation and fear to begin this process. Rarely do we feel like we have the ability to sing. In fact, the end result will not truly sing unless we can absolve our creativity of ourselves.
The Lyric Console Table is constructed of solid hardwoods and can store up to 40 bottles of wine. The bookmatched East Indian Rosewood, Black walnut top, feet, paneling, and inserts are meticulously joined together with Guatemalan Rosewood butterfly keys and splines. And finished in 5 coats of natural walnut oils and a beeswax polish.
"Muso, the unchanging formlessness behind all phenomena, which leads to a rejection of the "perfect" (the linear) in favor of an irregular, free formed beauty...True beauty is only attainable when the workman has achieved a freedom beyond his own individual ego. Yanagi advocated the surrender of self before beauty, and he believed that handwork fostered a good life." - Mira Nakashima
Jeff.e.martin@hotmail.com














