Every year after all the holiday rush is over we start looking forward to our next project for Safari Club International in Reno, NV, Jan. 26th-29th. We try and make our biggest pieces for this show because it is for people that are looking for big game. One of the tables we made for SCI sold to Wayne Newton.
This year we are making a 10′ alligator juniper table but we’re especially excited about this one because we are going with a deeper tone for the inlays. There are going to be three main inlays that I really think are going to turn some heads. The center piece of the whole table is this beautifully book-matched geode stone. When we have it put into the table it is going to span 16 inches! We have an idea that we are going to do underneath this inlay. That’s right, underneath! It will be a dual-layered inlay. Something we’ve never seen nor done before. The two outside inlays promise to be complimentary in beauty to the centerpiece. We’ll be posting pictures of the finished table in a week or two.
Flutterfly
Make sure to come by and see us in Reno! Our booth number is 3302,3401.
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This year we have been playing in the shop! We really feel that way about most of the work we do but this year we’ve been branching out to do a little more on the sculpting side. I’ve been sculpting for years and have finally put my skills to the test with our latest piece, The Show Down. It is a cowboy and Indian themed chess set made from cotton wood (for the cowboys) and black walnut (for the Indians). Just as the chess set was modified from the its origin in the Middle East to reflect the culture of Europe during the Middle Ages we have re-renovated it, telling the story of the Wild West during the and 17th, 18th and 19th century.
On the cowboys’ side we have a mayor with a tall black hat representing the king and for the queen we designed a piece we like to call “Belle Starr.” Starr was notorious in the Old West for being a woman outlaw; she would definitely be a powerful queen.
Since the Roman Catholic Church had a lot of influence in the old west, especially up and down the Rio Grande, the Bishops, decorated with lapis tones, kept their position next to the two most powerful pieces on the board.
In the place of the knights we have old west gunslingers (appointed by Star of course). For the rooks we have a couple of outpost towers and finally for the pawns we have pawns. Nobody knows what a pawn is anyway, why change it? In the Middle Ages, the pawn represented the common folk and so our pawns represent all the town’s people. Their heads are made from coral.
On the Indian’s side for the King and Queen we have the Sioux Indian Chief, Red Cloud and his wife. Red Cloud was famous for being the only Indian Chief to defeat the U.S. in a war! For bishops, we put the Indian Medicine Men in charge, dressed with lapis lazuli stone. They were often considered wise and powerful men in the Indian tribes.
Next to the Medicine Men are a couple of warriors from the Mohawk tribe. Their mohawks are made from solid copper! For the rooks we put some classic Indian tepees with solid copper smoke coming out of the top.
On the Indian side, the pawns are decorated with turquoise heads with no hats, showing that the Indians had shaved their heads to be ready for battle. They might be a little bit more intimidating than the town folks on the cowboys side.
This set took us about three times longer to do than most of the tables or other pieces that we do around the shop but it turned out to be something that blew us away once we had finished it. It is so gratifying to see something we’ve worked on finally finished and set up to only exceed what we thought it would look like.
Please leave a comment and let us know what you think! Leave us a link to any cool chess sets you have discovered. We would love to see!
Thanks
Aaron Sanchez
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It was a beautiful time of year to be in Sedona. The weather was beautiful and the people hospitable. Sedona Arts Festival was a first time show for us so we were very exited to be awarded first prize for Wood Art. We hope to be able to turn the glory back to God because he is the one that has made such beautiful wood that we get to work with every day. It’s easy to see his glory in the rings of the junipers revealing their ages of up to two thousand years old. As we use the redwood, once considered unusable because of it’s curls and burls, we think of how amazing it is that they could be buried as land-fill for a hundred years and still be usable for beautiful tables. From the wood to the semiprecious stones God created it all and we are thankful for a chance to see it.
AndySanchez.com
Upcoming Shows
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We are very excited to be going to the Sedona Arts Festival this week-end. It has been a while since we have done a show in Arizona. When we first started doing shows most of them were in the “Grand Canyon State” and we loved doing business with our neighboring state. If you are in the Sedona area be sure to come visit us. This is the last show we will be doing until December at the Cowboy Christmas in Las Vegas NV.
AndySanchez.com
Upcoming Shows
Sedona Arts Festival
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