Would any of you like to post a picture of your last cherry breakfront with glass doors? Assume you bang these commissions out regularly for your paying clients.
Live edge is simply different strokes for different folks. IMHO
Contributor
Would any of you like to post a picture of your last cherry breakfront with glass doors? Assume you bang these commissions out regularly for your paying clients.
Live edge is simply different strokes for different folks. IMHO
Jerry
"It is better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation" - Herman Melville
Contributor
I remember a picnic table at a park on the avenue of the giants in the 1970's. It was live edge all the way. A piece of redwood log about 3' in diameter maybe 20' long. Two slabs cut off on either side for benches, flat side up. The center was about 12" thick as the table.
I have seen many a redwood burl table with nice grain.
Bill D
Contributor
The bright side is that when the fad is over, all the discarded tops can be milled and used for the next fad.
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It’s been a trend for about 60 years now….
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Contributor
Exactly.
And, to be clear, cutting a 2 1/2" slab out of a 3 foot wide craggy log, filling the cracks with black epoxy, and throwing on some legs does not constitute good design. It's a kind of brutalist approach that assumes that mass, gloss and live edge are aesthetically sufficient and right for everything.
On the other hand, I've been in enough corporate board rooms and executive suites and the like to say that for aesthetic deadness in wood, the inevitable slab table there holds no candle to the acres of rotary cut walnut veneer covering the walls.
Last edited by Steve Demuth; 12-22-2021 at 8:47 AM.
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+1 Zach.Originally Posted by Zachary Hoyt
I agree with the OP - live edge doesnt show me anything. YMMV.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
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Let's not confuse live edge furniture with screwing legs to an unfinished board.
Contributor
Too late. That ship passes quickly, every time this subject comes up.
~mike
happy in my mud hut
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I can understand the appeal of making live edge stuff. A lot of the design work is done by nature. The built world has been dumbed down by people designing things to work with engineered materials, like MDF, laminate, and all the other plastic building materials that are costed out predictably. All these plastic cabinets, doors, windows, floors, etc. are like eating Captain Crunch cereal three meals a day until you are dead. Perhaps not that bad, but you know what I mean.
Building parts built with aesthetic use of materials is a skill that is leaving the room. Carpenters used to understand the geometry of moldings and building design. Now, we get the marketing people winging it to the lowest common denominator.
Given the choice of a live edge conference table made out of 1970's laminate over MDF, or a live edge river of toxic glop, I can see why people like live edge. There is hope for renewed interest in building parts that are beautiful. When I describe the geometry of moldings and the proportions of building facades to old house owners, they are interested.
[OP]
Contributor
Yep..pretty much exactly that. .. . .Let's not confuse live edge furniture with screwing legs to an unfinished board.
Many of the creators of what's out there are the type that would look at the stonework in Falling Waters and see a surface in need of white paint to "freshen it up".
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon
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Or the folks that were going to paint the interior of the Gamble House to brighten it up.Yep..pretty much exactly that. .. . .
Many of the creators of what's out there are the type that would look at the stonework in Falling Waters and see a surface in need of white paint to "freshen it up".
Contributor
I have a problem with all encompassing statements of any kind (pro or con). Please take a look at this previous post.
(https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....ht=Bill+Mcniel)
Moderator
I actually appreciate live edge furniture, being a fan of Nakashima and living in the area where he did a lot of his work. (his daughter still runs the company) But I'm also all for tasteful. Not a fan of "flashy" river tables, but ok with monochrome resin work to make useful surfaces for dining, etc. There can always be a middle ground.
--
The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Contributor
Wow, this thread is a walk down memory lane. I had erased spool furniture from my memory. How about wood lobster trap coffee tables? I am also a river table hater but the black epoxy and slab tables are nicer to look at than rotary cut veneer. It looks like plenty of people are still making black epoxy/slab and river tables tables on spec so I assume they still sell. As to live edge without epoxy, it can fit in either a very rustic or very contemporary home if not overdone but it is not my cup of tea.
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I have never been able to understand why Frank Lloyd Wright is so venerated. An architect who designs buildings that leak when new and have so many structural problems is not doing much of a service to the world, in my opinion. Architecture as art or self-expression seems fine to me, as long as it is actually functional too. I would have thought that Fonthill Abbey (for instance) would have already pointed out the problem with avant-garde architecture going beyond the limits of feasibility long before his time, but I guess it didn't stick.
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