03.14.09

Rustic cabinetry: east vs west

Posted in architecture, cabinetry at 5:43 pm by Administrator

There is a wonderful book, Victorian Bonanza, Victorian Architecture of the Rocky Mountain West, by Scott and Beth Warren. It explores the ties settling the West has with Victorian Architecture and is wonderfully illustrated with photos taken by the author. A statement in the introduction has been profound for me, “by embracing the Victorian venue without hesitation, the West’s founding fathers purposefully bridged the gap between wilderness and civilization”. Though the Wild West is much tamer these days, there is still a need to remain connected to civilization.

My great-grandfather was a merchant and postman in a little western settlement and lived in this little Victorian influenced home. I think it is a good example of an everyday home of the era that helped a small town bridge the gap between wilderness and civilization, romance and the harsh duties of life in a small western pioneer settlement.
(Family home in Meadow, vacant when photographed).

I recently talked about the East/West divide with a friend and resident of Denver, who represents Wood-Mode, a fine and seasoned cabinetmaker from the east. Rustic cabinetry has been the trend in the Southwest and West for a number of years. However, western rustic is something that the eastern folks have struggled to produce. In the west we expect rustic cabinetry to have knots in the wood but controlled, we have a split personality, give me knots, but not to big and not soft or the fall out variety. They need to look good and have a certain casual wild look but refined somehow. Now, It is easy to see when I try to describe rustic why there is confusion. Some time ago a door sample arrived at our studio from an eastern Canadian cabinetmaker who had just entered the rustic market. The door looked like Swiss cheese and some knots fell out into my hand. This certainly would not fly with our clients in the southwest. Knotty wood is part of the conservation of wood that is scarce in the southwest. Walking the vistas of the southwest landscape is the best way to understand the inspiration for rustic. The windswept desert and the crisp skies and wide-open places have a raw and yet clean quality.

Now do not take these comments wrong, the east may not understand rustic perfectly but we also need to understand our dependence on the east. The skills of the west like Victorian Architecture were largely transplanted here. Our ancestors (or perhaps you) migrated here with skills and knowledge refined by a stuffier culture, culture has its honored standards. And now I have seen where we can produce cabinetry locally and frankly let rustic be an excuse for sloppy work, poorly made moldings and rough materials. There is no lasting value in sloppy work or thinking. The bridge between east and west still bridges the gap between wilderness and civilization. When Wood-Mode began building European frame-less cabinetry they went to the experts in Germany to teach them. We like our ancestors must purposefully, continually bridge the gap between wilderness and civilization.

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