Yesterday, one of my tables was profiled on the influential home decor and design site, Design Sponge. I've been a huge fan of Grace Bonney, the founder and tastemaker of Design Sponge, for a number of years now, and it is an absolute honor to be included in her wonderful site and article on the art and use of butterfly joints in wood furnishings and accents.
Butterflies in Wood: A Tradition + Trend Coming Back [Design Sponge]
A beautiful example of a sinker cypress slab. Look at that grain!
A great article came out in this morning's LA Times profiling a very little known but highly desirable wood that can easily command prices in the 5-figure range. But it's not wood that you can just cut, kiln-dry and then fashion into a table or instrument. No, with this type of wood you have to drown it at the bottom of a river then wait over a hundred years. These are logs, usually pine or cypress, that were cut in the late-1800's and "lost" during the harvesting when they were moved on the rivers to their mill destinations. This was actually a common occurrence and the ones that broke loose from the main batches just floated away and many eventually sank to the river bottoms.
Today, there are a few people who hunt these type of logs and the rewards can be huge. The look and patina of slabs that come from these sinkers is something that is marveled. I have never had the chance to work on this type of wood, but I've been fortunate enough to see finished slab tables that came from sinkers and the end-results is nothing short of amazing. If you've seen what weather and time can do to copper you can get an idea of what one-hundred years underwater can do to wood. The grains are outlined in a way that just stand out and and the gradients on some of these slabs from the outside towards the middle can be amazing. I hope sometime in my lifetime I'll be luck enough to get my hands on a sinker log or slab and create something beautiful.
1800s-era sunken logs are now treasure [Los Angeles Times]
Finally, a new design space. I've been looking for a new space to complement the workshop for several months now. It's really hard to do design and clerical work in an environment that's constantly cluttered, dusty (read: dirty) and just hard to manuever sometimes when you have multiple projects in various stages of completion all spread out. In addition, I was sorely lacking additional storage space for not just wood but tools and accessories. It was maddening at times. But today is the dawn of a new age--ok, that went a little off the deep end but it marks somewhat of a fresh start for me. This new space isn't all that big, but it's nice and clean (white walls!) and a comfortable environment to work in when I'm not doing any woodwork.
Hello everyone! Just want to update you on the progress of the new website and where I go from here. I'm hoping to have the new Pasadenaville website live in about a week. This site you're viewing now will still remain the same although it will revert back to its original address: pasadenaville.blogspot.com.
At the same time, I'm working on some new live edge wood tables while I continue to work on some custom order pieces (which I'm still behind on). Hope to have the tables listed real soon.
There will also be a blog section within the new website, and though most of the posts will automatically be crossed with this blog you're reading, my thoughts and musings on Pasadena and sustainable living will still live on here. So stay tuned!
A little shameless self-promotion: yesterday, I found out that a couple of my tables were profiled on the influential design website, Apartment Therapy. I was wondering why this blog and my Etsy site traffic shot up in addition to my email box being flooded with inquiries on my live-edge tables. I'm really honored to have my products featured on a wonderful site such as Apartment Therapy and I've often thought that my products really fit with the AT demographics. If you're in the market for live-edge tables or other furniture, hit me up!
Neon Hairpin Legs: When Industrial Gets Happy [Apartment Therapy]
