Ah, yes, to be able to "polish one side well". I think we all aspire to
this in one form or another but then someone comes along and asks, "when
will it be finished?". Alas, my audience would not appreciate the work
to do one side only, they only want to know, "How many beers can ya
putin there?". :-)

BRuce

Noons wrote:
"Dick Durbin" wrote in message om...

A recent discussion about James Krenov sent me to his Web page. I can
not, for the life of me, understand the appeal of those curious little
curio cabinets he builds. The bases seem totally out of scale with
the cabinets that sit on them.


Oddly, they seem well proportioned to me. It's all to do with
how you look at them. That's one of the things with JK's
stuff: it changes as you change your point of view.


I looked at many of the highlighted pieces they showed and, while I
am sure the joinery was fine, many of the pieces were merely objects
d'art. I realized that I held these pieces of "art furniture" in
scorn since there seemed to be little function to complement the form.


But curio cabinets have a function. Not for you and
most definitely not for me as I don't own "curios".
Others do. Besides, if you get some of his books,
you'll find that he goes through phases. He made a lot
of other stuff in past periods.

The thing with his creations is that the execution is
nothing short of perfection, always almost invisible.
But effective. That is hard to do. Very hard. I particularly
like his cabinet with the oddly cooppered doors that cannot
possibly close or open, yet they do and to perfection.


Why, I wonder, would a person like Krenov who has the skills required
to build beautiful AND functional furniture limit himself to building
trifles.


His current phase is cabinets. Once he's happy that he's explored
all his mind tells him to do in that area, he'll move on. If he's
still alive. Personally, I don't mind one bit. I've found all
his creations a source of ideas and interesting techniques which
I try to emulate. Without success, but I learn. That's the whole
idea of his, I guess.

Nakashima for example does not do as much for me. His chair is mostly
impractical unless you have a huge room. And I suspect it won't
"wobble" properly. Although obviously stunning. All his other creations
remind me of someone grabbing a lump of wood, polishing one side and calling
it finished. Nevertheless, it's still very well executed stuff and I wish
I could "polish one side" as well as he does!


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BRuce