Prairie Sentinel Buffet
"Prairie Sentinel Buffet". This piece Won "Exhibitor's Choice Award" at the 2012 Western Design Conference in Jackson, WY. 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.
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Meg Thompson designs and builds custom furniture from reclaimed materials using traditional joinery techniques. She sources all her own material and values the inherent historical energy in old materials. She worked around the West as a carpenter, and then in New York City as cabinetmaker, before evolving into a professional visual artist and furniture maker. After being away from Wyoming for fifteen years, she recently moved back to her beloved home state where she works to heed the story of the landscape through visual form. Meg’s studio and shop are located in Laramie, WY; her custom pieces are in homes across the country. In 2012 she won an "Exhibitor's Choice" award at the Western Design Conference in Jackson Hole, with her piece "Prairie Sentinel Buffet." In 2015 she was invited to be a founding member of the Western Craft Association and she won "Best in Show" for Woodworking at the 46th annual Kimball Arts Festival in Park City.
Meg uses a collaborative approach, incorporating clients’ vision and environment to develop a piece that will last generations. She creates computer generated plans to sign off on before work begins. She particularly values the challenge of working with a client’s own stock of reclaimed lumber, like from a family farm, etc.
Her style is influenced by a combination of Shaker sensibility, the enduring graceful forms of the natural world, and the amazing wealth of creative works and expertise of crafts folk before her.
“In my view, making furniture is a combination of fine craftsmanship, practicality, and artistic vision. I believe our intention goes into our work, whatever that type of work is, and manifests in the final product. As an artist and craftswoman, I strive to create unique pieces of functional art that we engage with daily. Each piece has it’s own integrity derived from great care, focus, and attention to detail. Thank you for considering my business and I look forward to creating a piece you will love.”
-Meg Thompson
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