Project no.5
Object with Soul
The materials that make up our homes often end up in dump yards. However, within these discarded materials lies abandoned beauty – top class material – native timber. From recycling centres on the North Shore pieces of rimu, remnants of houses from the 1950s to 1970s, were slowly collected over weeks. These pieces of rimu were pieced together to create a cabinet.
The characteristics of recycled rimu give an abundance of detail and features. Pieces of wood that had once formed joists, skirting boards, and fascia boards showed their history with their patterning of aged nail holes. These marks created a patina of tool use interwoven within the rimu grain. Harlem Oil with silk finish was used to revitalize and expose the rimu grains. This combination of history and natural beauty enhances the uniqueness of the object and gives it a soul.
Offcuts were used on one corner to create a parquetry. Small individual pieces created by the process of creating the unit, come together to form a mosaic and illustrate cradle-to-cradle principles; trees that were milled to wood, became a house, that then became pieces of wood, that then became an object that contains further pieces of its own offcuts.
