Each year Lake crafts around 70 studio-furniture pieces-----tables, chairs, desks, and chests --- about half commissioned and the rest destined for a handful of galleries. His rocking chairs, which have long, gracefully recurved bottoms, have become his signature pieces. "All the lines in my pieces harmonize," he explains. "The components are balanced, and everything is proportional and scaled."
The inspiration for Lake's designs are often far-flung: the swept line of a Kyoto stone temple wall, for example, became the topside curve of a coffee table leg.
Lake often visits a clients' home to see where the piece will be placed, and takes his cue from the setting. Very narrow slats on one client's Japanese style gates, echoed over the front door, provided the impetus for a set of dining room chairs. "I brought those slats down and repeated them in the chair backs, which, without being slavish," the artist recalls, "created a sense of harmony and tied the architecture together."
Tai Lake uses hundreds of tools, most of them hand implements to bring forth a piece from the wood. Hand-sanding the finish takes nearly a third of the time. The result: exceptional balance and sensitivity of line. "To most people, wood is this hard and unyielding thing that has to be forced into shape," says Lake. "But for me, wood is like clay."
The inspiration for Lake's designs are often far-flung: the swept line of a Kyoto stone temple wall, for example, became the topside curve of a coffee table leg.
Lake often visits a clients' home to see where the piece will be placed, and takes his cue from the setting. Very narrow slats on one client's Japanese style gates, echoed over the front door, provided the impetus for a set of dining room chairs. "I brought those slats down and repeated them in the chair backs, which, without being slavish," the artist recalls, "created a sense of harmony and tied the architecture together."
Tai Lake uses hundreds of tools, most of them hand implements to bring forth a piece from the wood. Hand-sanding the finish takes nearly a third of the time. The result: exceptional balance and sensitivity of line. "To most people, wood is this hard and unyielding thing that has to be forced into shape," says Lake. "But for me, wood is like clay."
