"Seating for Two"
The final project of Sophmore year was to create a piece of furniture for two seated individuals. The limitations on the final piece were: no upholstrery and no "chair back."
After initial design critiques our professors encouraged members of the studio to look for other forms of inspiration and imagery outside of art, furniture, and crafts. I went back to some architectural elements I am fasciated with and found that it was the repetition of forms I found captivating. I began to look for repeating forms in other fields. I soon found myself pouring over books on insects and arthropods with their repeated body segments and legs as my main focus.
As more intense sketching and conceptualization took place, I focused on how the segments of the insect body interact with one another. At this point the Centipede became a huge influence. As the Centipede moves segments tend to slide under the adject segment. The "knee" joints on these creatures do a smilar thing where the upper segment interacts with the next leg segment.
Construction: The bench top is aedge grain glue up of two 4ft L x 8in W 8/4 cherry boards. Boards were jointed and planed in order to best see grain and minimize any visible glue line. Rough shaping began outdoors with a rasp attachment on an angle grinder. The legs came from a 40in L x 9in W board of 12/4 cherry. This extra thick board was neccesary to have adequete material to carve with out the need of ugly glue lines in the legs. 18in L x 3in x 3in billets went on the lathe. housed tenons were turned and most of the leg tapers were also turned at this time. I left extra material in the "knee" joint to be hand shapped. Legs were brought final shap using Dragon Rasps and other files. Fine rasp was used to refine thecarving on the bench top. Tenons were slotted on the table saw after shaping. Walnut wedges make the joints lock tight and are a nice accent. Sanded and finished with danish oil, buffed to a low sheen.
One side of the bench is angled slightly open, hinting at the movement of the centipede. This piece is full of life and movement as the the overlaps seem to slip apart. Building this was fun and challenging but truely rewarding now that its completed. This piece is for sale, anyone that is interested in purchasing ot wants more information please contact me.
