Aria Solid Walnut Wall Mirror

Details

Aria goes up, not across. It is a tall, slender column of walnut with its middle drawn in from both sides, so the glass narrows to a waist above the halfway mark and opens out again into a fuller, calmer mass at the foot. The pinch on the right starts higher and cuts deeper than the one on the left, and the top finishes in a soft peak that leans left rather than sitting level, so the two halves never quite answer each other.

The face of the frame is hollowed rather than flat. It dishes inward along its length and rolls back toward the wall at the outer edge, so one soft line of light runs up the walnut and bends wherever the surface turns. Stand to one side and the far edge drops into shadow while the near edge lifts. Walk across the room and they trade places.

A frame that changes width as it climbs

At the waist the wood thins to little more than a ribbon, barely deeper than the shadow line where the glass meets it; at the foot it opens into a shell-like sweep wider than the glass itself. That much change within one continuous piece rules out a frame assembled from strips of even width. It has to be cut from solid stock, and it is: solid walnut all the way through, not a veneer skin over a shaped core.

The grain is quiet on this one. It runs lengthwise, following the bend instead of cutting across it, and it reads as a slow shift in tone more than a pattern you could trace, lighter where the surface faces the window, deeper red-brown where it curls toward the wall. There is no joint line, and no seam at the waist where you would most expect one. The glass sits back inside the wood behind a thin dark gap, so the walnut stands proud of your reflection instead of finishing level with it.

Made in Konya, one at a time

The hands behind Aria belong to Mehmet Ali, born in Konya, thirty-five years and more into a life spent on wood. Nobody else shapes these frames. Mirrors came late to his workshop: about two years of them so far, set against a working life far longer than that.

Nothing is cut ahead of time. Your Aria is made after you order it, at the height and in the finish you ask for, from the boards to hand. It will sit close to these photographs rather than match them, and on a piece this long the tone travels a little between top and foot.

Choosing a height

Nine sizes, from 60 x 24 cm (23 x 9 inch) up to 200 x 80 cm (79 x 31 inch). The first number is the height: Aria hangs upright, and the proportion holds across the range, so a small one is a shorter Aria rather than a stubbier one.

Because it is so much taller than it is wide, it takes the kind of wall most mirrors cannot use: the strip between two windows, the end of a partition, the narrow return beside a doorway. From about 150 x 60 cm (59 x 23 inch) upward you get close to a full-length reflection; below that it hangs higher and reads as an upright accent.

Packing, shipping and care

Each mirror is wrapped in protective materials before it leaves the workshop and sent worldwide with a tracking number; pieces have reached around twenty countries so far. Dust the walnut with a soft dry cloth and keep it clear of standing damp. If you are torn between two heights, send us your wall measurements and we will say which one we would hang.

Aria is the upright one in the walnut wall mirror range. The same drawn-in waist turns up lying down on Vera, where it pinches hard enough to split the glass into two openings. If you would rather the outline kept its corners than lost them, Nora hangs portrait as well.