Sewing Table c. 1938

Ernest A. Towers Jr. made this drawing of a sewing table, sometime between 1855 and 1995. I imagine him carefully rendering each detail, each curve, and each shadow, with the patience of someone truly in love with design. What was he thinking as he created this? Was he imagining the hands that would use this table, the stories it would witness as it sat quietly in a corner? I look at the colors – these gentle, warm browns – and I wonder if he mixed them himself, striving to capture the exact tone of aged wood. That pedestal leg – see how it flares out? There’s something so graceful, so considered in that gesture. It reminds me of the way furniture makers like the Greene brothers thought about every detail. We are all in conversation, these makers, through objects like this sewing table, and through drawings like this, constantly inspiring one another, across time.