Works in Progress

Here's a sneak-peek of a work-in-progress, non-furniture piece I'm working on in my spare time. Like several of the smaller tables I've been making over the last 6 months or so, this piece works on a 30/60-degree angle star pattern. People regularly assume these pieces are created using an inlay. However, inlay (as either marquetry or parquetry) involves placing a pattern or image on top of an underlayment or other structural surface; whereas this piece is solidly handcrafted using 1,000 - 1,500 individual pieces.

It's about 40" square and though you probably can't tell from the photo, the thickness of the individual pieces range from about 1/2" to 1". The woods used to make the angular stripes are cherry and walnut. The colored stars are made of canary wood, blood wood and redheart.

Eventually, the piece will be sanded so that the surface smoothly follows the contour of the individual pieces. When completed, both pieces will be wall-mounted. Before sanding and finishing this piece, I'm going to make a plaster cast that will become a second piece. I still have to figure out how to do that. If I try to pour plaster directly on the wood, the water in the plaster will soak into the wood fibers and ruin the whole piece. Plaster will also stick like glue to a piece with as much texture as this. The plaster casting process will likely involve a combination of rubber and plaster molding. If you have any suggestions, I'd certainly consider them...

These other pieces are a couple examples of smaller fabrications that I've made mostly from the scraps from the above piece and some of earlier star tables. These pieces are also meant to be wall-mounted. The evolution of these pieces will be to make more sculptural, 3-dimensional objects in which these pieces are sort of like walls. But that'll probably be a while.