Draftafel

A person does quite a lot of stuff, sitting at a table. From family festivities to homework. Big, and certainly very big tables can be as inconvenient as they can be practical. With a lot of folks around the table conversation is kind of awkward, all sitting in a row you can’t really see the person in the corner. Very few, let’s say alone, at the table the big plane can feel a bit like a plain. Company or no company, the sitting person should always be at ease.

A round or oval table would’ve surely worked, but perhaps something straight with a few corners cut off is even better. The corners, that by cutting away just produced more corners, accommodate places, an address at the table, just like before ‘the head of the table’ was one. They scatter the expected orientations of the table. Aunts and uncles, family and friends direct themselves at each other by the shape of the table. Cross-conversations occur, tomatoes are passed. Sitting alone at the table, the severity of the plain is breached. One is solitarily harboured between corner three and four, obliquely across from the window. Standing up and walking, the corner allows for the corner, freedom in an otherwise rectangular room.

The top itself is solid, firm and has no adornments. Underneath the top the legs are placed simply where they should be, namely not in the way. They’re staggered, diagonally in trot, and they’re four. They’re aimed perpendicular at each other for optimal force resistance. They have a muscular thigh and get leaner towards the hoof. Cattle? A beetle? The table becomes a striding animal, in trot looking for company.