A lot of times in my work, a piece of wood will dictate what I make. More specifically, I’ll see something in a piece of wood I think will make an interesting feature and the design follows. The piece of wood will determine dimensions, height and width of doors, etc. That happened with my latest cabinet, but in this case it dictated the entire piece. I was given three walnut boards from a friend, the tree having blown down on their family property near the Indiana Dunes sometime in the 1960s! It was interesting wood, not typical of the walnut I’ve worked with in the past. But there was enough for a cabinet, if I supplemented with other walnut I already had. I wanted to blend the colors of the walnut from three very different sources. There’s a beautiful subtlety to the blended colors, along with painted details that turned out pretty well.
I’m eager to start another piece, a variation of this one. I have some pieces of white oak just waiting to be cut.