Outside the Studio: Team Member Personal Projects
Ever wonder what our team members work on in their downtime? We love learning about what lights up other artists and artisans and today you’ll learn more about how two of our team members, Dylan and Taylor spend their off hours creating pieces of their own.
Our team of fabricators are not just skilled professionals who excel in the art of transforming raw wood into functional and aesthetic wonders, they are artists at heart. Driven by an unwavering dedication to their craft, they each have developed their own personal design ethos (always a hot topic around here) and are able to flex their creative muscles and push the boundaries of their practice with their personal fabrication projects.
In our conversations with both Dylan and Taylor, we chatted about the inspiration behind their personal projects, the most challenging part of their processes and how their day-to-day work here at Aberdeen Studio influences them.
Read on for a little glimpse into their off-hours projects…
Name of Fabricator: Dylan Palmer
Name of Piece: Backgamin'
Approx Dimensions: 16 1/2" x 16 1/2"
Materials: Walnut, Maple, and Oak
Q: What was the inspiration to create this piece?
A: The double sided game board was inspired by a friend's interest in visiting and working in the woodshop. For his birthday we designed and built a chess board to make out of maple and walnut. After making the chess board we had the idea to add a backgammon board to the bottom side. Using the CNC [machine we recently acquired in the studio] to help with the inlays we were able to seamlessly inlay maple and oak into the walnut board on the bottom. The challenging part was making the board in a weekend, but we were able to achieve it so we could get to playing!
Q: How does this piece represent your personal design ethos?
A: This aligns well with my design ethos, paring physical and digital design methods to create a seamless finished project. Using 3D-modeling programs and the CNC was a fun challenge when combining the three different materials into a usable game board.
Q: How did form vs. function play out in the creation of this piece?
A: Scale was a large factor in the form vs. function of this piece. The board had to follow game layout rules while at the same time being large enough to fit standard chess/backgammon game pieces.
Q: What is your favorite part about this piece?
A: Learning about backgammon since I have never played before and having a piece in the end that was functional as fun entertainment for my friend and I.
Q: What was the most challenging part during fabrication?
A: The most challenging part was figuring out the exact size to do the backgammon inlays, so they would fit snug into the walnut bottom, but not too snug. If too snug the inlay would snap or break the walnut board in half from the pressure of hammering them in.
Q: How does your day-to-day work at Aberdeen influence your personal pieces?
A: I am constantly learning from co-works as I am working at Aberdeen, this allows me to learn new methods to achieve a cleaner more presentable finished piece when working on personal designs.
Q: Anything special about it that should not be missed?
A: We were excited when adding the border, gluing up walnut and maple then mitering it to give a seamless effect around the board.
Name of Fabricator: Taylor Williams
Name of Piece: The Zag Wonk
Approx Dimensions:
Height: 17.25”
Length: 43"
Width: 34"
Materials: Walnut, White Oak and Ash
Q: What was the inspiration to create this piece?
A: I had been collecting discarded off-cuts in the shop and wasn’t sure what I would end up doing with them initially. I knew I wanted to build a table. Giving myself the restriction of having to combine these smaller pieces forced me to come up with a design I otherwise would not have. Once I milled everything to the same square dimensions and glued them up in this patchy zig-zag, I wanted a wavy rounded edge to create contrast. I made up the rest as I went down, trying to maintain a good balance between angular and fluid shapes.
Q: How does this piece represent your personal design ethos?
A: I am drawn to more organic shapes, irregular details and the contrast of those against the geometric precision it takes for all the elements to align cleanly.
Q: How did form vs. function play out in the creation of this piece?
A: WELP, I certainly went in form first and struggled to work myself back to function. I liked the idea of alternating the two legs - one top and one bottom heavy. In the initial design, once assembled, I had a very topplable table. I had to redo the stretchers, making them about double the length, and reorient the legs. I still wouldn’t plop myself or anything heavy and fragile on the side with the top heavy leg, I’ll say that! But I love the final look.
Q: What is your favorite part about this piece?
A: I get a real kick out of the seam of the checkered stretcher ends aligning perfectly with the seams of the walnut and white oak legs.
Q: What was the most challenging part during fabrication?
A: Having to make adjustments to the base after I was all out of patience and so ready to be finished was brutal. At one point, I was rushing to attach the first version of the base to the top and, while I was doing so, I could feel myself about to do something with the router that I would regret but I... refused to stop. I ended up routing out placements for metal brackets in the wrong orientation and had to do four inlets on the underside of the top. Then it was so unstable once I had reattached the base "correctly" that I had to rethink the whole design (as I previously mentioned). I had a bad moment with my new stretcher that I won't get into but once the wrongs were made right and it was all together, I realized I’d sanded the bottoms of the rounded edge of the legs a bit too aggressively and I had to carefully take off enough material to make the table level again. This required so much flipping the heavy beast upside down and right side up over and over. An excellent workout.
Q: How does your day-to-day work at Aberdeen influence your personal pieces?
A: I love so many of the pieces that we create in the shop and am always making a mental note of elements I’d like to incorporate into my own work. The very first project I was assigned to had this massive ebonized stretcher that was similarly used in a non-traditional trestle design. That was the inspiration for the checkered stretcher on my table.
Q: Anything special about it that should not be missed?
A: I love inlets but I didn’t want to interrupt the checkered pattern by throwing extra squares in the mix so my solution were these little dowel inlets all across the top and I just think they’re fun.
The dedication to their craft that Dylan and Taylor show through their personal woodworking projects is a point of pride here at Aberdeen. By gaining insight into Dylan and Taylor’s work, we hope to continue these conversations that foster creativity, ingenuity and collaboration both in and out of the Aberdeen studio.