Page 12 - Trending Magazine 2017 Winter

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Just as his oral storytelling has character,
so, too, do Dorn’s tables.
Some draw from his engineering
background, using the “Calatrava bridge”
model dreamed up by architect and
structural engineer Santiago Calatrava,
wherein the weight on top is offset in an
unnatural-looking manner.
With his Calatrava tables, one slanted
semi-verticle support is in balance with
the weight of its horizontal tabletop.
The bulk of his tables, though, are more
traditional four-legged versions.
Some slabs of this wood are stained
unevenly by creosote wood preserver as
it was originally applied a century ago,
while others have a clear sealant painted
over them and some have been finished
with tung oil.
Each method brings out the wood’s
natural grains, and nothing is dressed up
too greatly, with Dorn taking a ‘what you
see is what you get’ approach to his craft
that flies in the face of today’s expensive,
overly-particular society.

“Remember the 70-cent loaf of bread at
Safeway you could buy?” Dorn asked.
“Now everybody wants a $6 loaf.”
Where the baker strives for perfection
with the $6 loaf, incorporating various
grains and other special ingredients to
make it seem more appealing, it’s all
window dressing. The 70-cent loaf might
not have everything the $6 loaf has, but at
least it’s honest about what it is: bread,
plain and simple.
Dorn’s tables are as equally honest about
what they are, carrying holes from knots
and long-removed nails, alongside gouges
from their century of service as bridges or
floor joists.
They’re ghosts of the past, and they each
have stories to tell.

Top right: Phil Dorn, president of Samson
Engineering, explains one of his unfinished offset
tables in his basement workshop.
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