An image spotted at the great Moon to Moon has us revisiting the idea of tattooing wood furniture: carving  with words or images in the tradition of stealth carvings on park picnic tables, bars and old school desks. We first saw at on the Selby. Stylist Charlotte Rust invited friends hanging out a table to carve whatever they want in the funky wooden table on her patio. It becomes a kind of guest book.

carved tattooed table CharlotteRust the Selby 2

Candles lodged in pools of wax make for an impromptu sculpture that add to its feeling of magic times passed.

The Selby
The Selby

We love this tableau from a Texas dance hall table from the late 1800‘s:

sweetridgesisters.files.wordpress.com
sweetridgesisters.files.wordpress.com

The Moon to Moon table evokes a more orderly, perhaps planned carving of names, or even a poem…

Erin Wasson/Moon to Moon
Erin Wasson/Moon to Moon

We are intrigued by the idea of using a metal stamp to emboss a wood surface…

carved tattooed table metal stamp holder

…as someone did with a chunk from Neruda’s The Great Tablecloth

crookedhouse.typepad.com
crookedhouse.typepad.com

Eating alone is a disappointment,
but not eating matters more,
is hollow and green, has thorns
like a child of fish-hooks
trailing from the heart,
clawing at your insides.

Hunger feels like pincers,
like the bite of crabs,
it burns and has no fire.
Hunger is a cold fire.
Let us sit down to eat
with all those who haven’t eaten;
let us spread great tablecloths,
put salt in the lakes of the world,
set up planetary bakeries,
tables with strawberries in snow,
and a plate like the moon itself
from which we can all eat.

For now I ask no more
than the justice of eating.

What would you carve in table?

Erin Wasson/Moon to Moon
Erin Wasson/Moon to Moon

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