This year’s live auction during the Summer Spritz will feature a tapered frame side table by Maine craftsman and artist, Eben Blaney. Eben is a contemporary furniture designer who has been designing and building furniture and cabinetry for over 20 years out of the shop that he constructed on his property in the midcoast Maine town of Edgecomb. The gallery of furniture and sculptures on his website represent his more recent contemporary furniture designs that have emerged from years of custom furniture building, as well as from his continual experimentation with forms, combinations of shapes and colors.
The tapered frame side table offered for auction at the Summer Spritz is a cerused white oak finish. The design came to Eben after working on a timber framing project. He was inspired by the combination of angularity, airiness, and joinery detail in the English style barn frame that he helped cut and erect. Like that barn, this table is all solid wood. And though open and airy, the table is surprisingly dense in finer details. The reverse- tapered legs of this table grow slender at their tops where they are connected by mortise and tenon and pegged through tenon joints to the slender, offset top rails. The top is 5/8″ with beveled edges to match the outside angle of the leg in relation to the floor.
The lower shelf of the table is composed of two pieces. This serves both a functional and aesthetic purpose. Because the outside corners of the shelf are precisely fit to the legs, the gap between boards provides necessary room for wood expansion and contraction. The gap also gives a simple, clean visual break to the surface. This piece of fine furniture retails for $1,500 and we’re thrilled to include it in our auction. Happy bidding during the live show! Purchase your tickets at www.CWPV.org/spritz