mar beck woodworking

a landlord’s trash is no ordinary treasure

i found the parts of this chair buried in a pile of trash, hidden in a corner of my backyard behind the garage when i was cleaning up a couple months after moving in. despite the fact that the wood was muddy, full of cracks, and devoured by insects, i couldn’t bring myself to throw it out.

to stabilize the pieces, i filled the cracks and saturated the wood with structural epoxy. i carved “stitches” over the cracks and colored them with milk paint, inspired by sashiko mending. i wanted to draw attention to the cracks and damage—they tell the story of the chair—and the work i put in to bring it back to life.