After studying carpentry in the mid-1990s at Barnham College in Dorset, England, Brian Reed returned home to Seattle with a gift from his mentor Robert Ingham: a stack of planks from a felled yew tree. In the years that followed, Reed made furniture in Washington, then Colorado, and now Maine, but he never touched a yew. “I carried that log through 10 moves,” Reed says. “For many years I thought I wasn’t good enough to use it.” But when he found himself a six-month resident at Purchase College in New York in 2017, the time had come. He built the first of three tansu there (top) using solid yew for the frame and yew veneer sawn in the shop for the drawers and doors. Building on the theme of Asian shapes and proportions, he built a second tansu from English sycamore with birch-bark paneling and elk-antler handles. For a third piece of tanso, Reid used another special stock of black oak, also brought from England, to create a parquetry pattern of interlocking ripples that resembled two stones thrown into a pond. “It was exhilarating,” Reid reflects on making these pieces. “When I was alone in Birches, I would work from eight in the morning until eight at night, seven days a week. I would say to friends who wanted to visit, ‘No, I’m busy.’” How did he feel about using his precious wood? “I think this is the best thing I’ve ever made.”
—Jonathan Benzen
Sign up for our e-newsletter today and get the latest techniques and how-tos from Fine Woodworking, plus special offers.
