Vera Solid Walnut Wall Mirror

Details

Vera runs sideways. The frame leaves the left side low and small, sweeps up through the middle and opens out again on the right into a lobe that is both taller and wider, and where the two meet the lower edge climbs until it very nearly touches the top. That pinched middle is the piece. It divides the glass into two unequal openings and gives you a long, panoramic band of reflection rather than a single pool of it.

The face of the wood is rounded outward, closer to a half-round than a flat strip, so one unbroken highlight runs the length of the frame and bends wherever the frame bends. Move toward it and that line of light slides along the curve. Nothing on the outline ever straightens, and nothing turns a corner.

A band that never keeps the same width

Follow the walnut around and it thickens and thins as it travels. It is slimmest over the top of the waist and swells to two or three times that at the far left and the far right, which is why the shape reads as a drawn line instead of a border of even thickness. Getting there means cutting the width away from solid stock. A veneered frame has to hold a steadier section, because the face has to stay wrapped.

The grain runs lengthwise along the band, following the sweep instead of crossing it, in fine dark lines over a mid-brown ground rather than loud figure. There is no joint line and no corner seam anywhere on the face. The glass sits back behind the wood and the walnut stands proud of it, dropping a thin shadow onto the edge of the mirror, so you register the depth of the frame before you register yourself.

Mehmet Ali, one order at a time

Every piece is shaped by Mehmet Ali. He was born in Konya, he has spent more than thirty-five years working wood, and the mirrors are the most recent thing to come out of a workshop that has been going a great deal longer.

Nothing is cut in advance. Your Vera is made once you have ordered it, in the size you choose, and the boards it comes from will decide its own tone and figure. The photographs show one walnut, not every walnut.

How much wall it should take

Nine sizes, from 60 x 25 cm (24 x 10 inch) up to 200 x 85 cm (79 x 33 inch), the long side listed first because Vera hangs on its length. The twin-lobed figure-eight keeps its proportions all the way up the range, so the larger sizes stretch further along the wall rather than growing taller. It suits a wall with room to run: over a console, a sideboard, a low bench, the head of a bed. Measure whatever sits underneath first, then give the frame a little more length than that piece has.

Packing and care

The workshop has sent pieces to around twenty countries so far. Vera is wrapped in protective materials and shipped worldwide with a tracking number. Dry air suits the walnut; a soft cloth is all the surface asks for. If two sizes look close on paper, measure the wall and write to us first, we would rather work it out with you than leave it to chance.

Stand that pinch upright and you get Aria, a narrow column for the strip of wall most mirrors cannot use. Keep it horizontal and Sorel runs the closest length, though its weight all gathers at one end rather than either side of a waist. Both hang in the walnut wall mirror range.