Curating Your Own Show

Your home space is a space that speaks of your tastes. You are the curator! I love curating my own show.  So you don’t like my table. I don’t care! I do!  So you don’t like my Clyde Jones painting Two Snakes with Nut Eyes! I don’t care! I do! So you don’t like old painted furniture. I don’t care! I do! I am the curator of this show.

This table top was made for me by Stephen Hogbin some 20 odd years ago. It was fitted on an old set of legs that finally gave up the ghost. I love how my arms fit into the router marks when I’m eating.  Stephen gave me my first crit- He said “ Look longest at the things you don’t like. It is from that you will learn the most.” I have often had to check myself for looking at only things I like.

I asked Jesse Black to make me a new bottom with a leg stretcher so I can put my feet up on it. I love what Jesse created. Nice little details that allow me to take it apart if ever I should move again.  I painted the bottom black as my Windsor chair’s are black and I love the Windsor’s as an art form. Apparently I share this love with Hamada who had a collection of Windsor’s.  A big shout out for a Japanese guy that admires the chair. I wonder if he would like a George McCauley fork. I would! The fork and the chair are two of the biggest contributions to  northern civilization.

 I’ve had a self imposed bummer of a week so I thought I would set the table for a nice dinner. I have a Daniel Johnson plate, a Korean salad bowl, an Andrew cup and a Harry Davis side plate. Looking over dinner is Bruce Cochrane and some forsythia from my garden. Harry got invited because I’ve been thinking of him all day. For over 30 years I made all my pots on batts reciting Harry’s wise words “Why build in distortion?” Today I made cups and picked them up soft purposely distorting them and showing the marks of the maker. Sorry Harry I fell off the wagon.