Here is where Abstract Expressionism enters the realm of woodwork and meets up with “soft industrial” design. This lamp, made of black walnut and ash, is a terrific accent piece for desktop, console table, or end table—anywhere where funky soft accent lighting is needed. The degree of difficulty on construction of this piece is relatively high, involving as it does four mortise and tenon joints, two of which are at 60 degree angles and a “bandsaw box” style wood shade cut from a glue-up stack of walnut pieces. The base is made from a beautiful piece of walnut crotch wood, and the pedestal and shade at the top are also of black walnut. The body and arms of the lamp are made of ash. The body was sliced into two pieces, so that grooves could be cut for wiring and the mortise for the arms could be shaped. It was then glued back together to form one solid piece. The arms are both solid blocks of ash, with tenons cut on the ends that insert into the body, with tiny holes created to feed the wiring out of the body and into the arms, each of which houses a strip of cool industrial style LED lights affixed into grooves. An additional strip of LED lights were attached inside the walnut shade at the top of the lamp body. As such, this lamp serves as both a desk/table top torch lamp that throws light up to the ceiling while it also illuminates the surface below with the lights in the arms.

This lamp measures 22” tall x 17” wide (tip to tip at the arms), with a base that measures roughly 8” x 8” square. It is finished with a satin-look oil based wipe on urethane for a rich luster.