(Custom Size: 16" x 90" x 32" high)
mmm.... quilted maple...
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Cloud reflections in super smooth laquer.
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Full scale model. I replaced the particleboard top with a rustic piece of pine, and now it's being used up in the tree fort.
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This was a nice project to do when I was in the middle of hammering out cabinet sizes for an upcoming wall unit project. It gave me the opportunity to crunch some numbers and ask my client some questions via email, then go down to the ground floor studio to fire up some machinery and get active.
So... not too long ago, I was happy to get my work into the Marten Gallery in Bayfield Ontario. A couple months later I got an email from someone saying they saw one of my console tables there that they liked a lot, but they needed a custom version, "a bit longer", to go under a newly acquired triptych by painter and print maker David Blackwood. This fired me up right away; the opportunity to have one of my pieces paired in a room with a very high caliber Canadian artist like that was an honor indeed. The 3-piece artwork is mostly black and white, with some gold dashes produced by the muzzle flares of the rifles in the scene. It's quite a gripping visual piece I must say. It was perfectly framed, hanging on their wall in their living room (all of which is newly renovated to make the whole house look like an art gallery), and they were quite right in thinking, that a long table should underline it and support it visually. ....Enter Jim Todd.
I had everything I needed to know from the beginning. I knew the size of the artwork, the wall, the room, and I got a snap shot of the art to really inspire me. Discussions followed, and it went the right way.
The table I made is 90" long , 16" deep and 32" high. The design follows my signature table design, but I adjusted the leg dimensions and other proportions to really make it sing. I spent about 5 minutes at my desk thinking about the fine tuning of the dimensions, and abruptly threw down the pencil and went down to grab some planks to start making a mock up. The mock up had 3 versions before I was ultimately happy. (Note to other furniture guys: sketching is great, and 3D computer modeling is nifty, but you need to see it 3D in the flesh. I do, even after 20++ years at this; proportions with the overhangs and the weight of a leg matter right down the tiniest fraction... go for the mock up!) My mock up was being made of cedar and a large pine board top, so it was going to happily hang around outside in front of my studio as a calling card.
The real magical thing about this table is that the top is made from one piece of quilted maple veneer. Let me say that it is quite rare to find a piece of this species so big without at least one distracting "birth mark". The guys at A&M Wood Specialties in Cambridge Ontario were compelled to make sure I knew that these were the biggest sheets of "text book perfect" quilted maple they'd seen. (Since 1973.) I believed them.
All the legs come from one huge hunk of cherry, which I dissected to select 4 pieces of flawless beautiful grain. The cherry beading and edging came from another board, so it all matched in colour too, which can be tricky with cherry you'll find.
I needed to buy 2 sheets of the quilted maple veneer at ~$10 a square foot so that I could match the aprons too. (They have a few more of those sheets lying there in the racks at A&M, and it's not going bad...)
http://www.martenarts.com/Core.aspx >(have received a proper referral fee.)
http://www.amwoodinc.com/default.aspx >(continue to make me spend way more than I should when I go there because of their incredible selection of scrumptious wood.)
Cheers!
So... not too long ago, I was happy to get my work into the Marten Gallery in Bayfield Ontario. A couple months later I got an email from someone saying they saw one of my console tables there that they liked a lot, but they needed a custom version, "a bit longer", to go under a newly acquired triptych by painter and print maker David Blackwood. This fired me up right away; the opportunity to have one of my pieces paired in a room with a very high caliber Canadian artist like that was an honor indeed. The 3-piece artwork is mostly black and white, with some gold dashes produced by the muzzle flares of the rifles in the scene. It's quite a gripping visual piece I must say. It was perfectly framed, hanging on their wall in their living room (all of which is newly renovated to make the whole house look like an art gallery), and they were quite right in thinking, that a long table should underline it and support it visually. ....Enter Jim Todd.
I had everything I needed to know from the beginning. I knew the size of the artwork, the wall, the room, and I got a snap shot of the art to really inspire me. Discussions followed, and it went the right way.
The table I made is 90" long , 16" deep and 32" high. The design follows my signature table design, but I adjusted the leg dimensions and other proportions to really make it sing. I spent about 5 minutes at my desk thinking about the fine tuning of the dimensions, and abruptly threw down the pencil and went down to grab some planks to start making a mock up. The mock up had 3 versions before I was ultimately happy. (Note to other furniture guys: sketching is great, and 3D computer modeling is nifty, but you need to see it 3D in the flesh. I do, even after 20++ years at this; proportions with the overhangs and the weight of a leg matter right down the tiniest fraction... go for the mock up!) My mock up was being made of cedar and a large pine board top, so it was going to happily hang around outside in front of my studio as a calling card.
The real magical thing about this table is that the top is made from one piece of quilted maple veneer. Let me say that it is quite rare to find a piece of this species so big without at least one distracting "birth mark". The guys at A&M Wood Specialties in Cambridge Ontario were compelled to make sure I knew that these were the biggest sheets of "text book perfect" quilted maple they'd seen. (Since 1973.) I believed them.
All the legs come from one huge hunk of cherry, which I dissected to select 4 pieces of flawless beautiful grain. The cherry beading and edging came from another board, so it all matched in colour too, which can be tricky with cherry you'll find.
I needed to buy 2 sheets of the quilted maple veneer at ~$10 a square foot so that I could match the aprons too. (They have a few more of those sheets lying there in the racks at A&M, and it's not going bad...)
http://www.martenarts.com/Core.aspx >(have received a proper referral fee.)
http://www.amwoodinc.com/default.aspx >(continue to make me spend way more than I should when I go there because of their incredible selection of scrumptious wood.)
Cheers!
