Meg Thompson

Won “Exhibitor’s Choice Award” at the 2012 Western Design Conference in Jackson, WY.
Prairie Sentinel Buffet; 68″ x 27″ x 30″; © 2012 Meg Thompson

Solid wood construction using reclaimed materials: barn wood, barbed wire, old hand-hewn cedar fence posts, antique nails and steel. The barbed wire is Michael Kelley’s “Thorny Fence,” the first to be patented, 1868. The door pulls are square nails, torch heated and shaped into pulls. All carcass joinery is mortise and tenon, and frame and panel, with handcut dovetails for the cherry drawer. The steel panels are streaked with a custom patina. The piece is finished with a polymerized tung oil.
The design is evocative of the short-grass prairie. Fence lines arise from the vast expanse of the golden grasslands delineating checkerboard boundaries and containing herds of cattle. Below the surface, life is deep and rich with ground squirrels, nesting night hawks, countless insects, and the deep, determined roots of prairie grasses, stretching down to reach secret aquifers below.