So today I was looking more closely at the four old oak boards ( about 2"thick ) that make up the top: how to clean up the worst gliches - gashes, splintery bits - without losing the variations in texture , colour, etc. which made me single them out at the salvage yard in the first place.
So that means sanding some edges quite deeply, cutting notches out in specific places, colouring certain patches - there's a number of techniques I instinctively draw on these days. And try to keep it instinctive and a little risky ( try things out ) rather than always doing the same stuff. So that this table top will not feel the same as any other I've done, and so that it has its own authenticity, which is eccentric but not foolish. When I've got to the end of doing all the earthiest stuff, I'll step back and ask myself if it is all too serious - does it need something playful or really unfunctional introduced at that late stage? That's where the pink might come in, or whatever.....Or it might emphatically not. For me using a colour I've never used before is really unnerving - I guess you might say I have a very limited palate, which is good perhaps, it's me anyway, at this stage.
But I'm jumping ahead: I haven't shaped the ends of the boards yet. More on this, dear reader, and other aspects tomorrow.
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- About My Work
- My home and studio for the past 20 years have been based in Hartland on the wild Atlantic North Devon coast, and, yes, I guess that and my love of discarded materials have been powerful influences: I use mostly relic oak from defunct barn roofs, boats, gates and fences to make elemental thrones, tables, daybeds and benches which, although they have an ancient, recently unearthed quality about them, work well in contemporary settings. The furniture is rugged, risky, energetic - functional but sculptural. The means of construction is usually very evident – maybe that keeps the work visceral and emphatically unglib. Most of my output is commissioned – I enjoy that process: it’s rewarding, exciting, and stretches me creatively. A number of influential garden designers and stylists have asked me to make large pieces for specific projects both here and abroad. And The Eden Project has commissioned three large sculptures and a throne which have all become familiar landmarks. I make small whimsical objects too: fruit dishes, cheeseboards, “shrines”, and naïve figurative sculptures incorporating bits of profound or querky text.
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