Printer-Shredder Table.. Pot Luck!

[cabinetman]

An interesting design...done well.
.

[footprintsinconc]

outstanding design on all three pieces. very beautiful like all your project. i like pretty much every aspect of your project from wood choice, to design, to your jointing, accents and finish.

[SARGE..g-47]

Thanks kindly to Claudio.. Jave.. Cabinetman and Omar. I feel somewhat like a lost puppy without something working down in the shop. I do intend to take a few days to rest before starting something new even though it is somewhat boring. The monotony is so bad.. I've been visually tracking a young tortouise moving across my yard for an hour and a half.

About the only think I can keep up with at this point in life..

[Norm in Fujino]

Thanks Norm.. first, nice to see you returned from the wilderness or whereever you have been secluded. Function doesn't necessarily require intense effort. At this point I am fully retired and can afford the time and effort to be intent which is required to go beyond just function alone. It keeps me out of trouble.

Yes, I have been wandering in the wilderness for most of my life, and I'm still there, sad to say.

I have never used anyone's plan.. I have never copied or reproduced someone else's work as I don't feel challenged doing so. But.. I have borrowed an element here and an element there from pieces I have seen and modified them into a final piece I call mine.

I'm with you on that. But it's fascinating to see how many different sources, conscious and unconscious, lie within the lineage of a design. I'm currently doing some research on the history of Arts and Crafts design, especially dealing with the suggestion of Japanese Shinto (in a very broad sense) influence. As an overall style (and apart from its philosophy of labor), Arts and Crafts in one or another of its guises can be tied to influences from medieval gothic, Moorish Spain/Hispanic Southern California, native American, and Asian designs, at least. In the case of Japan, I believe that the narrow, linear slat or latticework (spindle) in some Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright pieces like these:






represent a rather direct descent from Japanese senbon goushi ("thousand-slat lattice") found particularly in the Kyoto area, like these:



and


And further into the past, the possible lineage of religious furniture like the sacred gateway (torii)


(compare to the impression given by the end of this modern A&C design table)


and the Shinto liturgical altar called the hassokuan ("eight-legged table"):



Sorry for getting kinda carried away there, but one of the things I like about A&C is the wealth of cross-pollination that occurred, with influences from Asia passing to Europe and America, and those results then having an reverse impact on local design such as the mingei (folk arts) movement in Japan.

[SARGE..g-47]

"I'm with you on that. But it's fascinating to see how many different sources, conscious and unconscious, lie within the lineage of a design"... Norm

I think that I am concious of the sources. It would be extremely difficult to come up with a new twist that hasn't been used somewhere along the line over 5000 years of WW'ing IMO. After all.. it all starts with a basic box. Some things as tables.. chairs.. etc. are open but basically were a box before you remove elements to attain the required function.

So.. how do we disquise our box to meet function and add asthetic quality to please the eye at the same time? That is what the challenge of design is and not coming up with something totally original as that is almost an impossible task IMO. We add the element of architecture which the majority of A & C designers were. Most of those architects were not even WW'ers and relied on paid craftsman to execute their design.

My belief is we start with a box.. take away here... add a little there and hope to achieve function while finding asthetic ways of adding or taking away elements. In the end what you see is what you get and it is judged not only on function but how pleasing it is to the eye of a viewer. Gothic is nothing more than a box that has been made masculine by adding mass in various forms. Period is nothing more than a box where elements as in-lay.. marquetry.. molding.. delicate carving.. etc. have been added after mass was taken away from the box to achieve a somewhat feminine and delicate look or sophisticated refinement.

So.. bottom line in my thinking is all designs are related to each other whether it be concious or uncious as you suggested. They vary with each piece as the designer choses what elements he or she wants to incorporate.. what elements of mass to add or take away.. etc. The same can be said of an automobile.. house.. airplane.. you name it as all start out basically as a box and transformed into the final functioning result.

I have also been doing my home-work on A & C for a couple of years. If you don't already have them, may I suggest....

Arts & Crafts from Classic to Contemporary Furniture by Rodell and Binzen
Grove Park Inn Arts & Crafts Furniture by Bruce Johnson

And the most through on the European movement..
Arts and Crafts Furniture by John Andrews

All are excellent and informing. And again.. my thoughts about furniture design fall in many of the same areas as yours on design being a blend of international ideas that are based on architecture being applied to a simple box to attain function and enhace asthetics. It's a small world... after all! :>)
Have a good day Norm.. and enjoy your studies on the subject.

[Kerf]

very very nice!

[SARGE..g-47]

Thanks Kerf...