Greetings Galoots,

Phil E. wrote: "One of my confusions with Krenov is, "What are his cabinets
FOR?" They are
beautiful but what in the world do folks possess to need cabinets like
this? Damned if I know." 


They are for nothing. They are useless. In the old dialect phrase: "It's for
pretty."

There is nothing you can put into a Krenov cabinet, without immediately
discovering that you need more, and practical, cabinets to hold the rest. "The
rest" will, of course, be the remainder of what you put into the Krenov cabinet.
This goes even when he tells us that a particular cabinet was made for a
particular purpose for a particular customer. In one example he made a cabinet
with fitted compartments for the customer's collection of Oriental porcelain
bowls. So far so good. Krenov makes the cabinet. Customer takes delivery and, oh
so carefully, moves his collection into the fitted drawers and closes them with
a feeling of perfect joy completed. And what the hell does he do the next day?
Give up collecting? Go on collecting, thus ruining the perfect match between his
collection and his Krenov cabinet? Put up with inferior cabinets until is
collection has grown enough that he can order another perfect Krenov cabinet for
his collection annex? Or consider the cabinet Krenov made to hold a customer's
violin---I forget the details, but I'm assuming it was a violin and a violinist
worthy of a Krenov cabinet. But a cabinet for one violin? Did you ever know a
serious musician who had only one instrument? At least---the ones who have only
one instrument aren't plonking down the bucks for a Krenov cabinet.  And what
about all the little stuff that goes with the fiddle? Think of the clutter of
spare strings, beeswax, the bow--or, rather, bows----, all needing a place to
live and resisting tight regimentation....


Its not just that putting something in a Krenov cabinet humiliates it with base
functionality. What else can you put in the same room with a Krenov cabinet
except maybe one (just one) other Krenov cabinet? Add watch out if the room is
badly proportioned, or painted the wrong color, or incorrectly lighted; because
then that beautiful wisp of a cabinet won't look nearly as beautiful. I know
there are collectors of Krenov's work; in my imagnation they must be rich enough
to afford a mansion with one room per piece of furniture, and then an entirely
separate set of rooms to live in.

Don't get me wrong: I think Krenov's work is transcendentally beautiful. I love
it, though I probably couldn't live with it, even if I could afford the mansion
and so on. But the first step to undeerstanding it and really appreciating it is
to grasp the fact that it is utterly, completely useless. Then you can give up
the ego that says that furniture should toil at your bidding, and you can just
look, and look, and look at it. Like the caverns of Helm's Deep. This is clearly
a case which falsifies (in context) one of my favorite sayings, by the important
Arts and Crfts Movement philosopher and theoretician W.R. Lethaby: "Nothing
looks well that has been done for looks."

Tom ConroyBerkeley