I have recently opened a new web site entitled Fine Art Mirrors. The designs shown are intended to be both functional and as decorative art. There are many entirely different mirrors of different sizes. Each of the mirrors can be made in a wood of the customer's choice to suit their tastes and the décor of the room.

The intent is for these lovely sculptural forms to enhance any space and make even a dark alcove interesting, where the need is not so much for a looking glass but a splash of reflective light or an object of interest and beauty.

I use mirror glass of the highest quality custom with polished edges. The backs of the mirrors have a panel of wood set in and secured with wooden clips and tiny brass screws. The mirrors hang on the wall by means of "key-hole" hangers and a pattern for aligning the mirrors and positioning the screws into the wall is included with each mirror.

I hope you enjoy the new site.

Fine Art Mirrors.

"Chewy"

One of the interesting aspects of having a national furniture making business is being able to get to know different people from all over the United States. Although I don't often meet my clients face to face, we quickly get to know each other through fax, email or by discussing interesting projects and designs on the phone.

My wife Ellen and I did meet Barry and Joanie Cohen for whom I made the Manhattan Table, The Interlocking Coffee Tables and a beautiful cherry wood Coffee Table But not until a year later.

We were in New York on our way to visit Ellen's brother who lives in New Jersey. We went downtown to meet the Cohens in person and see how their new dining room furniture looked in their appartment.

Barry and Joanie have a dog: a white roly-poly rascal that looks like a pirate with a black patch over one eye. Barry has taught "Chewy" to do a variety of tricks.

Barry says, "And now, what do we do when we come home from a walk and our paws are muddy?" And the dog goes into the next room and climbs into the shower!

"And what where do we keep our toys?" And the dog opens a drawer and takes out a rubber ring!

Then Barry says, "And what about closing the drawer?" And Chewy goes back and closes the door with his nose!

Barry has taught his dog at least a dozen very sophisticated tricks. It was like one ring circus all by itself in the unlikely setting of a Manhattan apartment.

Manhattan Table

More About CD/DVD Cabinets

I enjoy making CD/DVD cabinets for many reasons. I have calculated the inside dimensions of the drawers to allow for an optimum versatility to fit combinations of CDs, DVDs, or Video Cassettes or ample space for each separately.

The drawers are three inches high inside which makes it very easy to store or remove cassettes because of access to handle them by the sides.

The drawers run on wood sliders and have that pleasant wood-on-wood sound when they are opened or closed. They can also be removed entirely from the cabinet much like library card index files.

There is an adjustable wooden device of my own invention included in each of the drawers for holding the cassettes upright to prevent them falling over if the drawer is not full.

The drawer pulls can be made of solid wood like the ones shown on the MadroneCD Cabinet or with a card slot like the Twenty Drawer CD Cabinet

The wood of the drawer fronts is made from one long plank so that the same grain continues attractively through the entire face of the cabinet. The golden walnut inlay on the face of the Madrone CD Cabinet is a continuous composition.

There is no plywood in any of my cabinets. They are made entirely of solid hardwoods with floating panels both for aesthetic appeal and the practical consideration of allowing for the expansion and contraction of the wood.

A further delight is the size flexibility: the cabinets can be made to suit a small CD or DVD collection or to store an enormous number of disks.

Madrone CD/DVD Cabinet

Furniture As Art

I made the New Round Table to show at the annual Siskiyou Wood Craft Guild Show in Ashland, Oregon last November. It was very well received and considered an exciting addition to my line of Fine Hardwood Furniture. The center sculpture beneath the glass is made of purpleheart while the asymmetrical inlay surrounding it is madrone. The underside of the table is also madrone. The rest of the wood is a deep, rich purpleheart that is almost edible.

I was talking with a friend at the show about how fine furniture improves with age. It really does. The colors mature and deepen and the wood itself changes. My friend, a life-long master concert violinmaker pointed out that this change is a well-known phenomenon to violinmakers. Over time the tone of a fine violin becomes richer. And so it also does with fine furniture. It is my goal as a furniture maker, not only to design and make furniture pieces as art, but by using selected woods and good craftsmanship to make furniture that may also become the heirlooms and treasured antiques of tomorrow.

The New Round Table is 40" in diameter and comfortably seats four.

New Table

New Dining Table

Each year in Ashland, the Siskiyou Wood Craft Guild presents a fabulous furniture show. This year was the twenty-third anniversary with almost twenty exhibitors from around the region. The show lasts three days in downtown Ashland, Oregon and is a very popular Fall event with local people and the many visitors who come from out of town to be with families for Thanksgiving.

I had two new pieces in the show. The first was a new dining table, six feet long and fifty inches wide made of a combination of madrone and purple heart. The edge of the table is asymmetrical in design with the shape reflected in the corresponding inlay and sculptural center. I ran a ¼" edged inlay of ebony all around the top with another the same width separating the madrone and purple heart colors with spectacular effect.

The second table in the show was round and made with the same combination of woods. I will write more about that one next week.

New Dining Table

CD Cabinets

I worked at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland for five years. Along with some of the most fabulously creative people I have ever met, I made props for the eleven shows that are staged in repertory throughout the season from February through October.

Shortly after starting my own furniture business I received a telephone call from Libby Appel, the Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Festival.

Libby has a beautiful home overlooking the town with some glorious views of the surrounding hills. Much of her furniture is antique: heirlooms with sentimental value. Libby asked me to make her a CD cabinet in keeping with the style and finish of the older furniture. I decided on the apothecary drawer look with a row of three drawers across the top and four high providing ample storage space for her extensive collection of classical music CDs. The dimensions of each drawer allowed not only for CDs but DVDs and Video Cassettes if necessary. The drawers run on wooden slides making that delightful wood on wood sound when they are opened. Each drawer can be removed from the cabinet for easy access.

For a finish I built up several layers of shellac and gave a final soft luster to the cabinet using a hard wax polish. On the back I mounted small brass plate with my name and signature, a practice typical with traditional furniture makers and in keeping with Libby's other furniture treasure.

Oak CD Cabinet

My Sources of Inspiration

Several sources and art impulses have influenced my work and fostered a very individual design style.

I have been greatly inspired by the Art Nouveau movement and in particular the furniture of Louis Majorelle. I also enjoy the style of Antonio Gaudi and traveled to Barcelona in 1985 especially to view his fascinating architecture. Maori carving of New Zealand, where I lived for a year and the sumptuous organic intricacy of Celtic metal work and jewelry inspired a profound interest and recognition that these instinctive and traditional peoples had a lively intimacy with nature which profoundly influenced their crafts.

The Celts followed intuitively the forms and formative processes found everywhere in nature.

Beyond these rich studies the major influence behind the compositions of my sculpted furniture remains the extensive art training I received at Emerson College in England.

Manhattan Dining Table

Sculpted Coffee Table

The inspiration for my dining tables with the center sculpture beneath the glass developed from a coffee table I made many years ago. I draw my designs with colored chalks full size so that I can erase the lines and refine the composition over and over again. Often the finished drawings, with all the beautiful chalk colors look quite lovely and I have kept several hanging on the walls of my workshop.

I was at the Art Furnishings Show in Santa Monica several years ago discussing with a visitor the idea of making a large dining table in the same manner as the coffee table. From that casual conversation developed the Santa Monica dining table that is nine feet six inches long and has an attractive center sculpture derived from the beautiful and graceful form of the calla lily. In addition I made ten chairs to compliment the table also of the same figured Oregon maple.

The customer at the show was Joe Perches and he and his wife Tam have remained our good friends ever since.

Coffee Table

I worked for five years in the Theater Props department of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. During my third year OSF did an excellent performance of "Uncle Vanya" in the Bowmer Theater. The set was designed by the well know New York theater designer, Robert Brill.

Robert was still in New York and was only due to arrive in Ashland some weeks later. I was assigned to make the four chairs and a matching bench for the play and Robert sent me a magazine picture of a turn-of-century Russian chair with curving arms. On the basis of that picture I made the chairs, upholstered them and they were duly painted and made ready for the half-year long run on stage.

After I left the Oregon Shakespeare festival and re-opened my own furniture shop I decided to make an improved version of the Vanya Chair. As it turned out I made three versions each a little more refined and further developed than the last. Finally, "The New Vanya Chair" was a chair I was really pleased with. Many of them now grace the homes of clients in California and Nevada. Below is the one in my own home.
Julian.

New Vanya Chair

CD/DVD cabinets with inlayed top

I completed a very interesting project earlier this summer for my friend Leonard Zubkoff of Crystal Bay, Lake Tahoe.

Leonard's collection of CDs and DVDs is quite large but he also needed side tables in his living room. I made four graceful little cabinets of madrone each with two drawers and a lovely inlay of purpleheart in the surface.

The inlay I designed was a complete and continuous composition when all four cabinets were placed together in a square yet each remained complete in itself when the units were used separately. This way they could be used a coffee table in the center of the living room area or as side tables placed about the room.

Leonard enjoyed the idea that when the cabinets were used as side tables and were arranged beside the armchairs and settee the inlay design in each unit flowed and continued into all the others.

Julian

CD/DVD Cabinet

Large Oval Dining Table made of maple

I am currently working on an oval dining table for a family in Medford, Oregon. The finished table will be ten feet six inches long and forty-four inches wide.

I am using Eastern curly maple with an inlay of purple heart in the surface, a line of purple heart following the vertical edge and a combination of purple heart and maple for the curved legs. This dining table is particularly interesting because it is made in three parts. For normal family dining the center third of the table can be taken away entirely and it then functions as a separate beautifully inlayed library table.

When the three sections are recombined for family gatherings and celebrations seating up to twelve, the inlay design follows through them all in a complete composition. The Santa Monica table on my web site is also made of Oregon maple. It is nine feet six inches long and fifty inches wide.

The Santa Monica table does not separate but has a center sculptural motif beneath the glass. The sculptural design is based on the sensuous curves of the calla lily. I made ten maple chairs with graceful sweeping arms to go with the table much of the wood was from the same tree.

Julian

SantaMonica Table

Madrone

When I first came to the Pacific North West in 1976 I was astonished by my first impression of the madrone tree. It has thin red bark that peels paper-thin revealing the next layer beneath which is fresh green in color.

It reminded me of eucalyptus, which also sheds its bark in a similar manner. But I had never seen madrone before and when I first saw the lumber I was thrilled. Madrone is very dense and hard, short fibered and polishes up to an ivory smooth finish.

At a furniture show once a man told me that the word madrone means lady's leg in an American Indian language. I have never been able to verify this but the tree limbs are curvy and sensual and it makes a good story.

I have made a lot of furniture out of madrone and I find it goes particularly well in combination with purple heart. The woods are different in type with purple heart having a very open grain while madrone is very dense but the color combination of the two together is quite striking as shown in the Tahoe Table.

Tahoe Table

Purpleheart

Although I mainly use native hardwoods, for several years I have been enjoying purpleheart (or violetwood) for furniture making particularly in combination with Pacific Northwest madrone.

My buffet sideboard is a purpleheart/madrone combination as are the Tahoe tables and chairs.

Purpleheart is native to Central and South America. The heartwood is purple and is straight grained. Purpleheart is a very tall, handsome canopy tree, averaging 120 to 150 feet in height in the natural rainforest with diameters of up to 4 feet. It is a very strong wood and is apparently also used for construction in its native countries, as it is very durable.

Some years ago, a friend at a furniture show displayed a handsome wall clock with a face made of purpleheart and I found the color strikingly rich and unusual. Unfortunately he told me that the purple color fades over time, turning instead into a rich brown.

I have since found out that if the wood is kept from direct sunlight and a finish with an ultraviolet inhibitor is applied the color will retain it deep rich purple hue. When the wood is first cut, it looses the purple color but if the finished piece is left after it is sanded the purple returns as the air does its magic.

Purpleheart also has a very open grain like oak. I have on occasion filled the grain with filler mixed with artist's oil color with striking effect. But I have also left the grain open so that it retains some of its natural texture and woodiness.

Julian

BuffetSideboard