My husband, Scott, says this one looks like a hubcap, or a flying saucer. It's huge--about 30 inches across. It didn't sell at the first show (Hal wanted $400 for it) but it will one of these days. It's yew (I'm going to let him come in here at some point and 'splain these woods better than I can--I just like saying "yew").
It reminds me of a large decorative bronze platter (?) that my father got when he was stationed in Korea in the early 60's. We always had it up on the wall somewhere. Another leftover from my dad's military service, besides fraying pup tents, was the stockpiled C rations in a grey green metal box in the basement (I remember sneaking in to eat the cold war era chocolate--even the jelly!). Hal had (and still has) a photographic memory for our childhood...I wonder if, along with the basement smell of mouldering 1928 National Geographics, he was influenced by that huge plate.
There's another piece--not for sale, though I want it--he made it for an ex-employee's wedding and she's off somewhere but he is still holding it for her--it's a covered dish in a shimmering yellow-red wood (maple?), heavily shellacked. It looks like a little ziggurat, and the bottom part has three little feet (Hal was big on little feet for last spring's work). I kept thinking "where have I seen this?" In my father's house is a covered black laquerware bowl from Okinawa--it has a ziggurat-y shape, three little squarish feet, and a deep red interior. It's interesting to see how Hal re-interpretted it--same shape, same lacquered shine, same size--4 decades later in a warmer wood. My friend Sumo thinks the shellac is too much, but I like how it makes the tiniest zig-zaggy pores in the wood shimmer.
Like the flying saucer-y piece, it's considerably more playful than its Cold War-era Asian inspiration.
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