The Gathered Thread is a one-of-one White Mulberry whiskey cup shaped by several kinds of gathering: wood, knowledge, process, and time.
White Mulberry has been part of another kind of gathering for centuries. Its leaves were gathered to feed silkworms, beginning a process that depended not only on the tree itself, but on accumulated human knowledge — when to gather the leaves, how to tend the silkworms, when to collect the cocoons, and how to reel their filaments into silk.
A ca. 1595 work in the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt collection documents that process visually, including the gathering of mulberry leaves, feeding of silkworms, and reeling of silk. In a way, it is an early process story: a sequence of images used to preserve and communicate how something was made. Explore the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt sericulture study.
Story / Provenance
This White Mulberry came from wood I gathered locally, but the more important gathering behind this piece was knowledge.
After watching another turner take a small log, reorient it, round it, and then turn the vessel from the side, I began experimenting with some of the wider Mulberry branches I already had on hand. That change in orientation revealed something I had not been seeing in more conventional forms: broad concentric heartwood rings on opposing faces, surrounded by dramatically lighter sapwood.
The technique did not determine the final shape, but it opened up a new way of reading the wood.
There is a personal thread in those rings as well. I am legally blind, and over time my visual field has narrowed through progressively smaller circles toward the center. It is only one thread in the story, but the rings revealed in this White Mulberry carry an unexpected resonance for me.
About This Piece
The Gathered Thread is hand-turned from White Mulberry (Morus alba) and measures approximately 3-1/4 inches tall by 3-1/2 inches wide.
Unlike the more rounded whiskey cups I have made using this method, this piece was given a broader, more squared profile. That shape gives the concentric growth rings room to become a dominant visual feature while allowing the lighter sapwood to sweep around the remaining sides.
Seen from one direction, the heartwood reads almost like a series of expanding circles. Turn the cup, and those rings give way to pale sapwood, darker boundaries, and irregular natural markings that make each face feel different from the last.
The three making videos included with this piece show the turning process in sequence — a modern counterpart, in a small way, to the centuries-old visual process record linked above.
Details
Hand-turned White Mulberry (Morus alba)
Approx. 3-1/4" tall × 3-1/2" wide
One of one
Natural heartwood and sapwood contrast
Part of The Gathering
