Habitat in a Birdhouse

Usually when I finish a project, regardless of what it is, the flaws - real or perceived - are what I most notice. Maybe it's because I've been looking at the same piece for so long; or maybe I'm too hard on myself. But when I delivered a table to my client Jessica at her new Birdhouse Collectible space in the Mastercraft building (1111 N. 13th St.), I had a different feeling: I felt confident and inspired.

Jessica's table started with a few ideas. She wanted a piece that had a modern, feminine quality. She also talked about how much she liked zebrawood, which besides being prohibitively expensive, is also kind of on my environmentally unfriendly list. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it's grown in a rain forest or similarly deforested, tropical area. Ultimately, I came up with a curvy cornered, spalted hackberry top with planks joined at irregular angles. The walnut legs curved at each outside corner and slightly tapered and angled out as they approached the floor. As you can see when comparing the original drawing to the the finished photos, I stayed pretty true to the design... with one major exception. What's that red stuff, you ask? No, I didn't hit an artery on the table saw; and the table was not a prop in "Resovoir Dogs". The red splatters and rivulets red marks are resin cast into the surface of the wood. They were also a solution to an unexpected problem with the material.

I bought the hackberry for Jessica's table at a sawmill in Silver City, IA. Most of it was rough cut, meaning the boards hadn't yet been run through a thickness planer to make their surfaces smooth and uniform. To my chagrin, there were wormholes winding across and straight through every board, the remnants of a society of bugs that apparently had once inhabited a stack of boards. I had run across this problem in the past, and had thought of using resin to fill the flawed faces of the boards. This time, it created an opportunity to pull the design together and make the piece more strongly connected to Jessica's business and space. I don't use esoteric titles very often, but in this case, I called the table "Habitat". I'm making more objects - furniture pieces and sculptural forms - that use resin casting while simultaneously casting a spotlight on the complex life of raw materials.

Did I mention that Birdhouse Collectible is a sort of showroom and gallery? It just so happens that I have a few other pieces for sale in the space. If you're interested in seeing those pieces, checking out the Habitat table and more, the Birdhouse Collectible Open House is a perfect opportunity. Come by next Saturday, August 21 from 6 - . I hope to see you there.