My Approach | Marcus Collier Fine Woodworking

I like to build my furniture around a specific board or boards that have been re-sawn (cut lengthwise) from the same thick board or beam of wood. This gives my work a holistic look and keeps the grain pattern continuous throughout the piece whether it is a coffee table or a dresser.

My early woodturning work was directly influenced by slump molded ceramics pieces. this type of ceramics construction technique involves laying a rolled out slab of clay over a sagging cloth stretched over a waste can for example. Clay is a very plastic material by its very nature–wood on the other hand is less so. But I enjoy going against the standard conventions employed in whatever medium I work with.

So my approach to the coffee tables treats the overall form/surface of the table as if it were a big slab of clay. My AdjusTable coffee table forms are therefore much more plastic, curvilinear, fluid and dynamic than a typical rectangular box on legs.

The AdjusTable coffee table form is a direct result of the compliment an early and smaller turned “Tray with Bowl” piece received from Sam Maloof, the preeminent furniture maker and recipient of the 1985 MacArthur Genius Grant. It is also a very versatile solution to the problem of seasonal wood movement which can be up to eight percent across the grain of wide table tops.

The legs of the AdjusTable series are fastened to the underside of the top with Austrian hardware mortisedinto the top of each leg. This type of non-permanent but very strong connection esssentially tracks/carries the legs along as the top expands and contracts seasonally. Since the receiving hardware can be placed anywhere on the underside of the top the legs can be rearranaged to create totally different forms out of the same top and its constituent four legs.

So the AdjusTable is a solution to several problems associated with solid wooden furniture:

• A beautiful solution to seasonal wood movement
• It’s KD — or knock down
• Infinitely more shippable
• It is my signature form — ‘Tray with Bowl’ — enlarged to furniture scale
• The legs are changeable, re-configuragble, adjustable