Olin Solid Oak Wall Mirror

Details

Olin runs along a wall the way a horizon does. The outline starts small and rounded at the left, then swells out to the right and lifts as it goes, so the far end finishes higher than the near one. Halfway across it changes its mind: the lower edge climbs toward the upper one and the frame draws in to a waist before opening out again. Something like an hourglass laid on its side, with one bulb larger than the other.

The band is never the same width twice. It carries its weight at the left end and again through the high curve on the right, and where the form is pinched it thins almost to a ribbon. The section is rounded and bellied forward rather than flat, so the oak stands out from the wall and the glass sits back behind it. In low window light the whole upper curve reads as one bright line while the underside stays in shadow.

One continuous band of oak

The color is light honey and the figure is quiet, fine lines rather than loud contrast, following the bend of the frame instead of cutting across it. Look for a joint and you will not find one: no seam at the waist, no glue line where the wave turns back on itself. That is what cutting a shape out of solid stock buys you. A thin face wrapped around a core always gives itself away at the tightest radius, and here the tightest radius sits dead center, where the eye goes first.

The glass is recessed behind the wood rather than flush with it. From an angle you take in the thickness of the frame first and the reflection second. Behind it the mirror is one sheet end to end, drawn in at the waist with the wood but never split.

Made when you ask for it

Mehmet Ali was born in Konya and has worked with wood for more than thirty-five years. Mirrors are the recent part of the story, two years of them so far, while the workshop they come from is a great deal older. He shapes every frame himself.

Nothing sits on a shelf waiting. Your Olin is cut once the order is placed, in the size and finish you pick, from whichever boards are on the bench that week. Its color and figure will be its own rather than a match for these photographs.

Choosing across nine sizes

Sizes run from 60 x 25 cm (24 x 10 inch) up to 200 x 85 cm (79 x 33 inch). The elongated proportion holds the whole way up, so a larger Olin is not a different shape, it simply takes more wall.

• 60 x 25 cm (24 x 10 inch) to 90 x 38 cm (35 x 15 inch): a narrow hallway, or above a slim shelf where a tall mirror would crowd you.
• 105 x 45 cm (41 x 18 inch) to 140 x 60 cm (55 x 24 inch): the easy range over a console or an entryway bench.
• 155 x 66 cm (61 x 26 inch) to 200 x 85 cm (79 x 33 inch): a panoramic run for a long wall with nothing competing above it.

It is drawn to hang with the long edge horizontal. Set that way, the pinch falls near the middle of your view and the reflection carries out to either side of it.

Packing and care

Work from the workshop has reached around twenty countries so far. Every piece leaves wrapped in protective material and travels worldwide with a tracking number. After that the oak asks for very little: keep it away from damp and pass a soft cloth over the frame now and then. If you are weighing two sizes against one wall, send us the measurements before you order and we will think it through.

The waist is what makes Olin, and it has company in the oak wall mirrors. Eira takes that pinch much further, down to a narrow bridge between two lobes, and Oran works the same long low proportion with a hollow along the top edge rather than a nip at the middle.