blue egg

Saturday was a full moon.  We went for a high-moon cross-country ski and the dogs came along for the run.  The light bounced off the snow with a silver glow. The last full moon shone for the once-in-a-blue-moon new years eve.  That night, a bunch of us had an amazing meal and skated on the pond around a fire set alight on the floating raft frozen in the ice.  During dinner we raised our glasses and challenged our imaginations to transform the next decade.

We have thirteen chickens on the farm.  One rooster, seven red hens, one white Sussex hen, a small banty and her three chicks.  The small banty I call Mama rules the roost.  The care she provided for her three babies enthralled me.  Despite being half the size of the other hens, she pecked a secure boundary around her babies, they ate first at the feeder, they had uninhibitited passage to all corners of the farm-yard, all three slept under her wings, and the rooster knew to keep his distance.  She was the only hen not laying eggs, her sole purpose was to nurture the wee ones.

On new years day however, the tide shifted.  The chicks, still a few months away from full maturity, no longer had the full protection of their mama.  The red hens chased them away from the prime feeding spots and Mama did nothing.  That night, the little ones roosted on their own away from Mama’s protective wings.

On the second of January, my routine egg collection revealed an amazing surprize;  Mama had laid an egg.  This was her first egg since she had come to the farm in the fall with her three chicks.  It was tiny and pointed compared to the clunky round brown eggs the other hens drop and it was the most incredible blue.  The blue moon had  indeed delivered a transformative stroke as the three chicks were resolutely asked to leave the nest to make room for the next generation.

W

Just over a year ago, I finished a job in Atlanta with Dennis Lin Studio. We made two trips to the brand new W Hotel in downtown core just around the corner from the olympic park.  The first visit into the heart of The South in early November found us smack-dab in the middle of the -Yes We Can- election.  The city was electrified by the energy of people hoping for change.  It seemed every other street corner had believers thrusting placquards in the air and shouting -Vote Now- and other such democratic reminders.  On election night, the four of us Canadians watched the vote count drinking beer and smoking Camels on the balcony with the motel tv facing the open door.  The air was warm and when Mr. Obama was called president car horns erupted and honked until morning.

Dennis was contracted through Burdifilek in Toronto to give some soul to the main public spaces of the hotel/condo complex.  His vision was to hang thousands of shimmering bird like mobiles from the 50 foot ceiling and partially cage them in with huge bands of twisting ribbons of thin wood.  This wonder would fill the glass walled  lounge located on the corner of the main floor.

In addition to this was the wall.  I was contracted to build 170 feet of curved solid walnut wall eleven feet tall.  The wall wound its way from the main entrance to the concierge desks.  I built the wall and Dennis and his crew carved it to mimmic draped fabric.  Around 5000 board feet of solid black walnut, most of it locally grown and milled, defined the volume of the task.

Here is a fraction of what we played with.

The contractors on site in Atlanta shipped us templates of the wall curves.  The templates, as we discovered upon arriving on site, were not as accurate as they could have been, but we  scrambled to make the pieces fit as we massaged the installation.

The process to make the curves was a game of angles.  A total of 86 panels each 2 ft wide and 11 feet tall were glued up to match the curves of the templated walls.  The process was like wooden barrel making, coopering.  The long sticks  of walnut were ripped with a very slight angle.  The sum of the angles makes the curve, not unlike the principles of calculus describing the curve of a line with a series of small short lines brought to the infinitesimal.

The panels looked like this.

.. and the carved panels.

.. and hanging on the wall.