One of a Kind Coat Rack

Back during the winter I had the opportunity to design and build a fun new piece: a custom, contemporary coat rack in carved and painted cherry.  It was the ideal commission.  It was a piece for some folks who had previously commissioned a custom piece from me (a small Taffy Mirror on stand).  They have been really great to work with.  For this coat rack, the criteria was very open.  It had to be wall mounted and had to fit within a 48″ wide space.  Beyond that they wanted me to let my imagination run free.  Wow, the dream clients!!  Their criteria was this: “design something that would be so exciting that we would spend all our time in the front hall admiring it and never want to hang a coat on it”.

Here’s some photos below, of what I came up with.  It ended up becoming a wall sculpture, where it’s function is not immediately obvious, but yet still does the job of being able to hang coats on it.  The two things I wanted to avoid in designing it were literal pegs or hooks as most people are used to seeing, and I wanted the way it is attached to the wall to be totally hidden, rather than having exposed screw holes in the front or metal tabs sticking up along the top edge.  Each of the crests of the curves in the carving stick out from the wall and act as hooks to hang the coats on.  I used 3 inch thick cherry for this piece, so the hooks stick out from the wall enough.  To hang the rack on the wall, I used two concealed clips that are set into the back and clip over two wall anchors.  Visually, I also wanted this piece to be asymmetrical, and have a feeling of motion.

The cherry used in this piece is FSC certified sustainably harvested, and came from Adirondack Hardwoods, in Saranac, NY.

(Click the images to enlarge):

Carved and Painted Cherry Coat Rack

www.DavidHurwitzOriginals.com