Many of you have been hearing for 3 years about Trout going to Kelly's to work on one thing or another. Kelly is the craftsman who is doing our cabinets, but his creativity and skill isn't limited to doing things like our little somewhat ordinary project. Trout helps him with the grunt work on his projects and Kelly does the creative part and the fine finishing.
They recently had to meet a deadline for a booth at the local ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) meeting at the convention center here in Tucson. The booth space was very small, just about 10'x10' but it was located right by the entry into the area of the meeting, so it was a great location.
This is the first thing like this that Kelly has done. I'm sure he will learn something new each time he does these shows. This time he learned that he didn't need to be so worried about some things as he was. He also learned that he needs to develop a good website.
To me the most exciting thing that happened was that some people from Tucson Lifestyle Magazine said that what he was doing was so different from everything they normally see that they want to do an article on his work for a summer issue. I think that may be the most important result from all the time, money and effort he put into doing the booth for the show.
Here are Kelly, his wife Lani and Trout posing for the camera after the booth was set up. I've been calling them the AFT (Arizona Furniture Theory -- Kelly's company name) Trinity. So blaphemous, I know, but before you assign roles, maybe their trinity is el maestro, el estudiante and la musa santa.
Here they are working on the booth.
Here Kelly and Trout are preparing to hang the mirror.
And here Trout is hanging it.
This is the wenge table that they used for "business" purposes -- flyers, business cards, etc. It also sort of formed the entry to the booth. Wenge is a very popular wood these days. I really like the legs of this table.
This is a table made of a slab of palo chino. Trout did the welding on the base of it. After thinking about a variety of bases to make, they just used what Kelly had around, largely due to time constraints I think. They added the balls on the feet. Many jokes were made about those.
Kelly loves doing furniture, but his bread and butter may turn out to be unique cabinet doors and drawer fronts. These are the ones that inspired the Tucson Lifestyle folks to want to write about him.
The ones on the left have conchos and distressed leather. The ones on the right have river rock set right into the space.
The ones on the left here have slate set in. The ones on the right have black leather but the inset is shaped.
This is Kelly taking a breather before the show starts. In this picture you can see the A-frames they built to show the doors and drawer fronts.
I took the first picture of the AFT Trinity because this one was good, but Trout's bald spot is in the mirror. Then I just couldn't get rid of it. His tonsure is so cute!
Trout has really been enjoying working with Kelly. He's learned a lot, improved his skills and gained some carpentry confidence.
