Flawfulness

My good friend Orson built some lovely upper cabinets for the kitchen of one of my long-standing clients, the ones whose Methow vacation property is guarded by Kitsune, the fox. Orson's work is characterized by care, love, patience, and precision. To the left of his gorgeous work a foot-wide space remained to be artfully filled. I was invited to provide some sabi to Orson's wabi, some yang to his yin. I made the cabinet's decorative shell out of a sheet of hot-pressed steel that had been hanging about the owner's property without purpose for numerous years. Some of the steel I ground down past the mill scale to the shiny steel hidden under blackness. The cuts were deliberatley out of perfect square. I intentionally accelerated the arrival of rust in places, and highlighted with red paint. Cicely's eye for detail and her steady and smooth hand accomplished the kanjis in the original mill scale on the left side. The idea is that years of patina will continue to beautify the piece by rusty degradadition in contrast to the very fine carpentry elsewhere in the house. It suits me, and I am not offended at all to be called in to balance things out a bit with my propensity to flawfulness.