There is a form of therapy known as Sandtray, where a person shapes and curates a small sandbox in order to plumb the non-verbal depths of the mind — or simply to play with curious objects. It is a deeply calming and ancient activity. Sand lends itself to shaping and curation due to to it’s…
The rocky coast of Salt Point is our favorite place in the world, a constant font of inspiration. The constant madness of the ocean has eroded the rocks into variegated, alien shape. Every time we go there, we see different creatures and patterns and tables and stories in the rocks. This place obviously inspired…
Pamela has always been a bit proud that she flunked her concrete class at Pasadena City college but still managed to make a long-lived concrete business. Theoretical slumps, tensile and compression load calculations: concrete can be quite mathematical and difficult. Important for an engineer building a house, of course, but you only need so many equations for…
We’ve experimented with more than a hundred different plants and other organic materials, everything from dandelion weeds to giant rhubarb leaves to bark and lichen. Unfortunately, many of these experiments don’t succeed as well as we would like. This is because it takes a specific thickness and texture to really make a good impression in…
As Sonoma County residents, the North Bay firestorms of October were terrifying and horrifying. So many lost everything. We would like to offer up to five people who lost homes and especially loved ones a free 12″ Pliny or 12″ Square side table of a style of your choosing. We can do impressions of names…
As much as we love leaves and natural elements, it’s fun to experiment with new looks, too. Dots and lines, simple concepts but with lots of possibilities, are a new muse. Irregular lines can reminisce of marble or height maps or erosion. Dots less easily map on to the natural world, but when unevenly patterned, they…
Most creativity is accidental, if not all of it. The artist often sits before their canvas with a plan, only to discover things come out much differently than they expected. Musicians can find themselves bored with their playing until they make a mistake, hit the wrong note, and suddenly everything is fresh, and they can find…
When people hear “concrete furniture,” they often think it’s going to be extremely heavy, ugly stuff only fit to sit in parks and bus stops. But most people are now realizing modern concrete furniture can be just as elegant, nearly as light, and far more durable than other furniture materials. But do you know every…
We now offer memory benches or other impressions of words on any of our pieces. They work particularly well on square or rectangular pieces like our Skye bench, Square End Tables, or Sophie chairs, though words may flow across the curved contours of our Pliny tables as well. The letters can be filled or unfilled and…
As smooth as our tables come out, working with concrete (or any furniture) means some messiness, even with even the cleanest and greenest of methods. Fortunately, messiness can be inspirational at the right moments, and not so different than art. Sunsets and season changes transform a mess in different ways, as in the first two photos below, which are similar…
Recently an old Agave plant began to flower at The Gardener, who we’ve worked with for almost twenty years. Like many plants, Agave dies when it flowers, so we have begun to preserve the leaves as concrete forms before they rot away. We’ll cast various stages of decomposition as the Agave completely dies away, letting…
