Not a garden gate design to be viewed and assessed in passing.

The back side of the wooden garden gate 217 is nearly identical to the front. This is not marquetry, where thin veneers are inlaid onto a solid substrate; Each piece is full thickness, cut to fit, and joined with various custom joints.

Correction: Inlays do exist throughout this gate design. What we’ll call continuation inlays–bordered by strips of African Wenge

Not to dissimilar to an art deco aesthetic, featuring bubinga reliefs, seated into ½” deep mortised pockets.

E ntry gate 217 features repurposed silver–Charles’ aunt’s wedding silver, actually. One serving platter–among the many platters none of which were of any interest to the present-day generation of nieces and daughters-in-law and cousins.

Posing.

In-Progress

The beginning. Angles/vectors. Acute and obtuse, complicated by a subtle lack of symmetry.

In the 1930’s, Roosevelt’s New Deal included the WPA (Works Project Administration). Ultimately employing 8 million people to resurrect the infrastructure, the WPA also employed tens of thousands of artists–musicians, writers, painters, sculptors, and actors. Luminaries such as Jackson Pollock, William de Kooning, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Diego Rivera, Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, and Richard Wright, The program was for all American artists–women, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics . . . Although the program was often criticized for running considerably over budget and time, the purpose was not to save money, but to employ those who needed work. Eschewing production machinery and time-saving protocols in lieu of the quality of hand-hewn workmanship, and the resulting pride of the artists and craftsmen. Roosevelt was rebuilding the nation’s sense of self, project by project. Artists were paid $23.60 a week; tax-supported patrons and institutions paid only for materials.

Among the various programs and projects, there were also book binders. Designing and creating leather-bound works of everlasting quality and beauty. Prowell’s gate #217 was inspired by an amalgam of book designs cultivated from the surviving photos and rare book collections of the 1930’s.

A puzzle, if anything. Pieces fitted to an unrelenting geometry of angles and joinery. One piece at a time. The pattern itself resides only in Charles’ head; no drawings exist.

Slightly off center axis.

A  top mast of wenge and honduras Mahogany inset into the upper section of the wood gate.

Aunt Mary’s family silver, passed down to a current era and culture when such heirlooms are courteously, carefully, dismissed as clutter in the cupboard.

To ease your conscience, or Charles’, all but one platter of the wedding silver was sterling. The rest was plated. Aunt Mary turned 95 as these words were written.

The silver was an after thought. The 217 was interrupted with an annual September trip to Pacific Beach and a visit with Aunt Mary in La Jolla.

After some deliberation, the two lower bottom solid panels of wooden gate design 217 are revised to accommodate the silver on the feature side of the gate only. below showing the property side, with wood insert panels at the bottom left. .

Knifing the continuation inlays for the artistic wood gate 217.

The continuation inlays for the garden gate 217 are scored with a marking knife then chiseled against that scored line. Working down to a depth of ¼”.

The inlay is a remnant from the primary stock, insuring a perfect match in color and grain.

Glued and fitted in place.

Scoring and chiseling for a series of reliefed inlays in bubinga.

The bubinga relief blocks, comprising the only features not on the same flat plane.