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I
had a picturesque image of a flower pot in my mind, but, in
reality, it was a shocking disaster. It had no relationship
to the lower part of the cabinet. The solid panel doors lifted
from the floor, the two drawers framed by slightly carved
edges, the top glass door frame beveled and lifted to form
a bead molding—all this was simple but strong, very sculptural
and solid. Now, for the first time in my life, I realized
how important a crown molding is for this type of cabinet.
But I felt crushed; my excitement, passion, pride, and enthusiasm
all went down the drain. It took quite a while to regain my
strength. I knew that I had to have a crown molding, but I
had so little knowledge about it. Then I visited a friend,
an American cabinetmaker, and asked him innocently, "What
is a crown molding?" His quick response was, "Just
something bigger than other moldings." I knew this was
not the whole answer, that there was more to it. He saw my
concern and said, "Wait a minute, I have a friend who
knows quite a lot about crown moldings". He phoned him
and this friend did not waste a minute. He immediately faxed
me information—long sheets of paper full of drawings and Greek
words of architectonic terminology emerged from the machine.
Right then, I knew that I had stepped into a hornet's nest.
Severe rules on the nature of crown molding were swarming
all around me. I felt I needed another lifetime to understand
all this complexity. Finally, I just chose one type of molding,
but I found it a little too angular and the corners a bit
too sharp, so I made them a little softer, being careful not
to destroy the balance of the contour. However, I still felt
uncomfortable working with the molding, so I asked several
established cabinetmakers to come see it. Every one of them
gave me a positive response, so I finally began to relax a
little.
However,
I was not out of the woods yet. I had a new and difficult
kind of headache, for the top part of the cabinet was no longer
my flower pot. Once I had called this cabinet "Patricia's
flower-pot cabinet". Now, the top part had a genuine
Western style, but the lower part, from the glass door down,
seemed very Eastern. Besides, I had already inlaid the drapery
design. How was I going to merge them together now?
I
was lucky, though, because I still had a 4-1/2" open
space between the drapery design and the top of the door frame.
I knew I had to have a great catalyst of form between them.
I struggled with design after design, trying one thing and
another. My friend suggested numerous ideas, but to no avail.
A few days passed without any encouragement. On the third
day, however, I saw some sign of a solution and by night I
came up with a shape that would be the mediator between the
upper-crown section and the cabinet below it. On the next
day, I showed it to a couple of my associates. Their responses
gave me some assurance. I applied a few more ideas to strengthen
the shape's purpose. I used the end grain for the face and
I created tense curves in the shape to reinforce the contour
of the crown molding above it. I marked out a suitable arrangement
to inlay them and carefully mortised them in place.
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