I had pulled out the manila envelope from my desk in the shop, because I needed its measurements. I’ve been making a desk, of walnut, and one of the requirements was that I include a drawer that can accommodate manila folders. After getting what I needed from it, it occurred to me that I had no idea what was in the envelope; I found inside the legal papers from the sale of my mother’s home in Texas. We had sold the house after she passed away. Wrapped around the documents were some furniture plans on graph paper, and on them a couple phrases: Function that Informs Fashion. And below that: Furniture that Remembers Life. These were clearly part of some advertising scheme I’d never carried out, and hadn’t thought of again - something I had been playing with while the lawyer finalized the sale.
Furniture that Remembers Life - It’s appropriate that I stumbled on such a phrase today, for a couple reasons: For starters, this desk I’m working on was commissioned right around the time my mother began really declining, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to finish it till now. I had tried to start the desk again in January, but in the first hour I cut my finger so deeply I ended up in the hospital (which I wrote about in a previous post), and back to the end of the list it went. It hadn’t occurred to me that this mental block was in any way related to the death of my mother, but now I’m sure it is. This half-built desk remembers her life.
I suppose I’m the sort of person that puts his problems in the back of a drawer and goes about his day; but lately I’ve been pulling some of these odds and ends out and putting them back together. And it’s interesting about this desk - I really want it to be done right. I want all of my pieces to be good and right, of course, but there’s a line furniture makers must walk between quality, and the pragmatism of needing to make a buck; or, at least furniture makers at my level. But this desk shall be fine!
This brings me to a point I’ve been wanting to discuss: What exactly is fine furniture? I had a client recently ask me what sort of furniture I liked best to make. I replied that I’m drawn to fine furniture, and it is at this level I am in general trying to work, though I’m only self-trained. She said, ‘Oh, you don’t make fine furniture. Fine furniture has the carved legs, and is done in mahogany, and…’ The gist of what she was saying was that fine furniture is that body of work done in one of the classical styles, like Queen Ann or William and Mary. And truly, that stuff would in my mind qualify as fine furniture. But, when I say fine furniture, I am talking more about quality than style. I am saying that this piece has been well designed and has good proportions; that it’s been put together with quality materials, with the best possible joinery, and with a mind to wood-movement; finally, that it’s been properly sanded and finished with a coating that will hold up to the sort of abuse the piece will be expected to endure.
When I say fine furniture, I’m talking less about style than quality, because well-made furniture is well cared-for. And this is the sort of furniture that could remember life. This sort follows generations, and takes on stories the way dust accumulates in the crevices and a patina is burnished into the places a family rests its body. It’s the sort of furniture that I am this minute sitting at - my family’s long English antique pine dining table, which we brought home after the sale of my mother’s house. This table is as sturdy as the day we got it, almost twenty years ago, and its patina, its wear is what I think is really beautiful about it - everyone who sees it comments on it. Everyone asks if I myself made it. I would be happy if all I made was dining tables. They are the hearth of the family, a token, and people see the record of their family in them. So, it needs to last a long time. And this is what I mean by furniture that remembers life.
So perhaps I shouldn’t be going around telling people that I make fine furniture, but it is a little easier than giving them the romantic spiel I laid out above.