BEE TABLE
B E E T A B L E
The bee table does two jobs: it is a family dining table for 10; and it is a 'round table' teaching and discussion space for a lecturer in Goethean science and natural philosophy. Sacred woods, nature…and bees figure highly with Goethe, and although the bees weren't a problem we did have quite a challenging time during 'lockdown' locating and processing the twenty four native species that make up this table. Though not rare, many of these timbers are so far from being 'commercial' [where can you buy gorse when you need it?] that for some we had to forage in the woods and then stack them around our kitchen range for months while they dried. A few of them have interesting histories: the hawthorn is from a hedge near the workshop here that was being planted while Napoleon was ravaging Europe, there's a small piece of oak taken from the client's childhood home in South Africa, and the Scots Pine, rescued from a peat bog in the Highlands, is estimated to be 4,500 years old, about the time that Stonehenge - the inspiration for the legs - was being built.
