A Gift That Waited Years to Be Made
Some pieces of wood arrive in the workshop and tell you, quietly, that they aren't ready yet. This mallee burr was one of them. It sat for years, all its tiny fissures and cracks waiting, while I waited too, for the project that deserved it.
That project turned out to be my daughter's 21st birthday.
There is a level of sentiment in a handmade gift that nothing shop bought can match. Not because the object is more valuable, but because the making of it carries something. The thought, the craft, the hours, and yes, the love, all of it is folded into the wood before you ever wrap it.
She loves green, so I brought green into the piece. A copper paint, sprayed with a patina activator, blooms into a rich natural green that looks as though it has been there for decades. The burr's countless tiny openings I filled with metal powders, bronze, copper and aluminium, so fine metallic lines run through the grain and catch the light as it turns. The boss got a layer of metal leaf, the base was scorched to look like granite, and when something still felt missing, I reached for the pyrography pen and let waves and flames answer it.
There is no shortcut in any of it. Just a slow, careful process on an eccentric chuck, a measure of patience, and the pleasure of making something one of a kind for somebody you love.
She loves it, by the way. That's really all that matters.