LET'S DISH

I loved this piece so much I tried (several times) to buy it from Hal. It's hand-turned Black Locust, about 10 inches across and 8 inches high. My friend Sumo thought it had too much shellac on it, which I think he slathered on because the wood would split as it dried (my husband just added that he, too, thinks it's too new looking--he doesn't like that turned thing on top--"too manufactured--I want it to look more old-shoe like"). Personally, I don't mind the shininess--it seems to show off the golden color and ripply patterns in the wood. Anyway, it was a wedding present for someone who had worked for him in his tree-cutting business, but she and her husband had moved out of the area and he didn't have her address. He kept saying he'd get it to her eventually, and I kept, well, wanting it.

This is the piece (I think I mentioned it in here somewhere) that's based on an Okinawan black lacquered wooden bowl with a vivid red interior--same basic shape and size--that my parents had from Okinawa, where we were born while my father was in the army. I knew when I saw that ziggurat-y cover that I'd seen the shape before, and I had. Maybe the Okinawan bowl was also the genesis of the little hand-turned feet (hey--"hand-turned feet"--snert!) that have made their Saturn Space Ship appearances in some of his work. But it was Hal's interpretation--I think--of something iconic that we had grown up with, and maybe because my brother(s) and I all have such a vivid memory for our childhood (which vanished overnight when our mother died at 39 in 1972), I, like Hal, have a hard time letting go of ANYTHING connected to her and to the past.

Anyway, after asking Hal about this covered dish again the other day and having him say he couldn't sell it to me, it had been promised to his friend...I said I would find her. A little directory assistance and lo, it will get to her. He was happy to know she was doing well, and glad it would be on its way. I will miss it, but I hope she will be happy to have it, and I am, as they say, glad to have known it.