Patterned Inlay Coffee Table
This walnut-based coffee table features three tiered shelves for easy magazine display and storage. The tabletop is intricately designed with one layer of solid maple inlay and another layer of poured copper epoxy inlay.
The Story:
Every once in a while, I design a piece that is highly conceptual and personally meaningful to me. This is one of those pieces. With the theme “Come Unity” as the show’s title where this table lived, I reflected on how unity displays itself in my own life. My husband and I live in the inner-city of Richmond in a neighborhood that has deep roots in African-American culture yet is currently experiencing quick gentrification with white millennials. While gentrification is an incredibly complicated concept, I find myself caring more and more that I don’t want to be part of a movement that creates disunity by washing away culture and ultimately the neighbors I love and consider to be family. I designed this piece to be a reflection on what my neighborhood could look like if the people who are gentrifying deeply care to uphold and honor the family-based culture that has always been here and spend the time getting to know our neighbors. While the maple inlay represents the gentrifiers moving into a historically black neighborhood, the top-layer of copper represents what could happen if we come together through relationships to create something beautiful- a reflection of the best parts of each culture- and maybe even an entirely new material all together.
