The Table: story of a table

My story begins at the John Boddy Timber store where I had been living for some time now. I am a native Jelutong wood that was born in Thailand. I have never met my parents. Somehow we lost each other years ago. I do know however that my mother is a guitar and my father lives somewhere in Europe. I had been in this timber store for some time now, living in one of the back corridors. They say that living in the front is a whole different story. You meet more people, they treat you better, you never get mixed with other woods that are not from the same family. Well, some prefer this but surely us in the back, we have always been happy being there and I can say, we made some good friends.

The sun started hitting the roof lights quite early and soon everybody was awake. The store opened once again. Saturday today, always quieter than weekdays. Not many people around, no pushing, rejecting or bad comments about a couple of grains that most of us have. But that Saturday was special!

There are times in your life where you need to take decisions. You need to do something than just seating down with the other woods. Or so they taught us..
Some of my friends have become houses, some kitchen tops, chairs, tables, doors, toys. I always said that I wanted to either become a toy or a table when I grow up and, lucky me, that Saturday everything was about to change.

I first saw these two people coming in. They were loud (greeks I thought; always loud). I overheard them when they were meeting Sanded Bitch, a friend of mine on the next isle. They were checking each one of the other woods too, looking at colours, weight, dimensions, textures, prices. They were talking about making a table for a university project and what better choice than me, I thought. I am clean (no grains whatsoever), I am durable, relatively cheap, and after all I always wanted to become a table!
Yes, this was my time and I quickly tried to attract their attention with my good looks. It didn’t take me long to be discovered and soon the three of us were making our way to Asterios’ workshop to start working. How exciting!

It was hard putting me in the car. I sat in between them and was driven to Leeds. On the way there I began to know Panos and Asterios better. I heard their plans, all these exciting things that would happen to me. My life had changed. I was already missing my friends back in the store but what was about to happen gave me hope and comfort. New places, new people, new experiences.

I had never been in Hyde Park before. Nice place it is! We parked the car outside the house and Panos and Asterios carried me inside. I was placed in the hall where I would spend the rest of the afternoon.
I was waiting by myself for hours (greek hospitality some say!) but then the three of us went up in the attic. I had heard about all these machines that can trim you, sand you, give you shape, help you become a better wood, but always sounded as a dream that might never happen.
I was tall and skinny, they said, and needed to be cut in half. Then they would stick me together and I would again become one. Oh, I was used to that. I remember back home, I was ten times bigger.

Cutting is no problem; sticking is. It needs a lot of effort, a thing called ‘glue’ and a good fifteen hours to concentrate and stick, with the great help of clamps; a pair of, what someone would say, quite scary metallic objects that squeeze you.


It was a hard night but it was all forgotten next morning when Panos and Asterios came again to continue working with me. They were both really happy to see me and they soon released me from the clamps to place me on a table in order to start drawing on me.

Panos used a ruler and a setsquare and started doing a fine line with a pencil. It took a lot of concentration but this was only the easy part. I was then handed in the hands of Asterios and soon heard the incredible sound of the electric saw. So much power, noise, dust. I was ready to start taking shape! He placed me carefully on the machine and slowly and softly, he started cutting off all the extra bits leaving me a perfect 800x400, tired and happy piece of wood. On the side, I saw my four legs, carefully cut and placed on a table. It would take time to get back together but all we needed was patience.

I was itching all over but I knew what was coming. The sanding! I had heard about this. It can happen in three ways, by hand, with a hand-operated machine or inside a big metallic box that you go in and everything is done for you without extra help. We started with a bit of hand sanding and straight on to the second method that seemed to be much more complicated than I thought.

It took them long and it was a hard thing to do. After an hour or so, I was much smoother but probably not enough for letting ink get printed on me. I didn’t mind the small bumps on me. They were part of me in some way. I wouldn’t have mind having them to be honest. They looked kind of cute.

But they insisted. I needed to be perfectly smooth for the printing and so we went for a small trip to the Leeds College of Art & Design where I met Derek and his machines. It felt a bit weird going inside that dark box but I came out of it and I was the smoothest wood in the world, all nice and slick; god, I would become such a nice table!

We returned with Panos at his place where he left me in his bedroom, covered me with a piece of cloth and let me rest. I would have my show again two weeks later, in the Printmaking workshop of Leeds Metropolitan University, but until then he had to decide about what was going to be written and drawn.

The idea was to reveal all the hidden informati¬on about me. How I can help people with things I can do for them, what are my possible uses, what is my story and how I ended up being a table. The later is what I am doing now. I am a written witness of this great experience that I lived so far from the time when I was living back in the wood store until now. I am not sure what is coming next. I know I am going to be printed in the printmaking workshops and my legs will be attached on my body, I will be photographed and filmed, I might be on an exhibition. I will be living with Panos in his flat and who knows what the future holds!
I will always be an ordinary table. An ordinary table with a story like every other table around.
My only difference is that I had a chance of saying it.