In Mail, Out Mail

In Mail, Out Mail. In the great tradition of cardboard furniture--well, let's say that it's in my tradition of cardboard furniture. A contradiction in terms, which I fully realize--and yet, the inoffensiveness of the material has so much going for it! Including here the addition of brown paper tape as the unifying element--a kind of cladding or skin that pulls the whole thing together. The holes I'm particularly fond of--made with a drop-forged steel punch--which has some use in the craft industry, no doubt--leather-work, book-binding or even light metal. But here it's important because of the way it allows for the rounded corners on the upper edge.

Not sure where that started, those rounded corners. Maybe there's a distant source in Neo-Spanish Colonial San Diego, or later, in Oceanside, with the arches of Irving Gill. Shapes that register as part of one's childhood. Or maybe from my father--I have a large pine cutting-board in the studio which he must have made in the garage at some point. The corners are rounded, just like this, but probably with a hand jig-saw and then a wood file, so that they're less precise. (That’s a good quality!) Just like his wooden bench, from the San Diego years, before we moved to Oceanside in 1954. Constructed of 1x12 clear redwood (that's all that was available in those days--apparently it was cheaper to distribute the wood milled in wide boards--some as much as 30 inches--rather than go to the expense of cutting it down), with hand-chiseled rabbets for the diagonal braces.

Dad always used hand tools. I have two of his saws on a rack in the studio--rip and crosscut, with the old varnished-hardwood handles--one with a medallion of some sort, a mark of the tool maker. They hang side by side; I made a place for them when I moved from Oakland in 1995.

As a reminder, of his presence, the way he made things, enjoyed the feel of the wood. He took up sculpture after leaving the business--working in oak and douglas fir--tall 12 x 12 blocks which he'd shape first with a hatchet, then with chisels. A set of chisels. The work always had that feel of Russia--even though I wasn't sure at the outset what this meant. (He'd been born in the Minsk Province in 1904, so the wood and the ways of working it were in him--part of his memory of the physical world all around. My grandfather, who worked in the printshop and a sa a felsher in the plywood factory before. (The same feeling as in Russian folk toys, even their entirely commercial descendents one sees at the laquer box/ /matryoshka booth at the Del Mar Fair....)

All I knew of that life were the things he made, so I'm now realizing that what I learned from was already a memory. Probably crucial, although I don't recall his ever talking about it.

Maybe the cardboard, on my part, was an acknowledgement of the transcience.

My father never regretted coming to this country--he greatly enjoyed their life in San Diego, the family and friends. His English was virtually perfect (I was probably the only one who caught that rare missed vowel.) But when he made things with his hands, something of that old Russian life was in him, too...

And it was from those things that I learned the most…

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