I love a good snowbound winter almost more than any other season. I loved the record snows of last winter. But what a strange winter we had this year. Barely more than a single snow shower during any given month, with brutal cold followed by spring like rains, then a rebound plummeting of the mercury. All that "Winter Whiplash" got me longing for spring.
Ice breaking up
I saw more than my share of ice patterns this winter, but I actually started to look forward to the next pattern and was fascinated by them. The beauty of the patterns got me thinking of how I could apply that to the surface of a piece of furniture, and thus was born the beginning of "Come Spring" a table that sits three for an eat in kitchen.
I started the design process thinking almost exclusively about the stool as the table idea was just not coming! But as is sometimes the case, just when you hone in on one element of an idea, some other element suddenly comes sharply into focus.
Come Spring/ Table model
One night the design of the table came to me in a perfectly realized vision. I couldn't wait to get to the shop the next morning and start building the model. The table will be made of riff sawn ash with a breaking up ice pattern, made of riff sawn ash veneer. The top is a soft triangle and the legs are made of a series of angled pieces that meet at various angels as they go to the floor.
And just like that, the design of the stool I had been working on really didn't work at all and had to be wholly scrapped. Apparently my best ideas come to me in the night, as a couple of nights later the stool idea came along just as fully realized as the table had. Next morning I got right to work on the prototype for it.
Come Spring/ Stool, poplar
Here is the mock up of the stool made of poplar. It is far from perfect, and several of the proportions will be altered, but you get the basic idea. Essentially what I was thinking about was delamination. The top of the stool looks like it is peeling up from the bottom. The edges of the top will be eased a bit so that there will be no uninviting sharp edges. I like the feel of my furniture to be very welcoming and comfortable to the touch. As with the table, I will use riff sawn ash for all parts of the stools.
So here it is Easter weekend. I guess it's come spring now.