Quality Abstractions; The Perfect Bench

The Bench in Waterbury Street’s morning light

It was Plato who first contemplated that any form that exists in physical reality, is an abstraction of its imagined perfect idea.

As amateur philosophers ourselves, when we set out to imagine the perfect bench for our shop, we knew we’d have to make some compromises when it came time to build it. Or at least we thought we knew; enter craftsman James Harmon of Abstract Quality who did not exist in Plato’s times…for if he did, James would show our bench as an example of something that in fact exists more perfectly than the mind could imagine it. Come by and sit for yourself! Without giving up any of his trade secrets, here’s how James summarized the project:

"What can be said about the window bench? Most people don't understand the challenge of making things offsite, which is to say working off of a set of measurements and hoping that one recorded all the elevations and intricacies of the installation site. I certainly did not, at least not right away as I had to visit a couple of times to re-measure and bolster my confidence that I had understood things well enough. Electricians and plumbers have the benefit of interacting with site obstacles in situ, reacting in real time. Being 100 miles away I didn't have that luxury. A cardboard template was made and in the end I got to make something as best I could for a couple of guys trying out something new."

Cardboard Prototype for specs

local legends enjoying the new bench