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A beautiful contemporary sculptural vase of Sonoran Desert Ironwood elaborately inlaid with turquoise by Lawrence Favorite



In our forty or so years in business, this is one of our tiny number of “Favorite” pieces, only the third piece of contemporary wood artist Lawrence Favorite’s (b.1940's) extraordinary wood sculptures that we have ever had. Favorite’s pieces aren’t easy to come by because they aren’t easy to make and he doesn’t make very many.



“It’s very time consuming, the wood is extremely hard; normal woodworking tools won’t cut it. Other woods are soft, I wanted something that would last.”

-Lawrence Favorite



Lawrence Favorite began his artistic career in Arizona in the late 1970's working with local materials; Sonoran Desert Ironwood, turquoise and occasionally silver and other stones. He has since relocated to North Carolina,

but continues to work in his Southwestern idiom with exclusively Southwestern materials.


This sculptural vase is a remarkably sophisticated and difficult to make piece. First off, Sonoran Desert Ironwood, Favorite’s material of choice from which he makes all of his pieces, is one of the hardest, densest and most difficult woods to work with. It is one of the heaviest woods in the world and unlike most woods will not float on water, sinking instead due to its extreme weight. It is also extremely durable and can last up to 1,600 years. Lawrence Favorite’s elaborate stone inlay work is also extremely painstaking and precise sometimes involving hundreds of tiny pieces of stone. Favorite uses a jeweler’s loupe to place the tiny inlay pieces into the wood which he says he grinds up to an extreme fineness using an old garbage disposal.


Lawrence Favorite in his studio, c. 2017

Photo source and © Alamance News

The Sonoran Desert Ironwood Tree (Olneya tesota)

Photo source and © Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

The vase’s shape is just stunning with a sloping curvilinear form which beautifully highlights the complex grain of

the ironwood. The vase rises up to a narrow thin neck and an angled slanted spout. One side of the vase is decorated with an extraordinarily elaborate abstract inlay composed of perhaps two hundred tiny pieces of turquoise arranged in the form of two interwisend trees which further emphasizes the shape and height of the vessel and the grain of the wood. The color contrast between the deep dark reddish-brown of the ironwood and bright sky blue of the turquoise is exceptionally striking and beautiful.


The other side of the vase has a large abstract diagonal turquoise running across it with small tendrils reaching around the edges of the vase. Taken altogether, the decorative composition of the turquoise inlays is visually striking and absolutely stunning. In a final and inspired decorative touch, Favorite has inlaid a small piece of a much lighter colored wood into the very top rim of the vessel and the extreme contrast and striking juxtaposition between this lighter blond wood color and the deep brown of the desert ironwood is simply marvelous and puts the proverbial "cherry" on the top of the artistic sundae so to speak.


This particular combination of ironwood and turquoise material and colors has long fascinated great Southwestern jewelry artists such as world-renowned Hopi jeweler, Charles Loloma (1921-1991) and the great Navajo silversmith, Kenneth Begay (1913-1977) both of whom worked extensively with ironwood and turquoise in combination. We should also take a moment to mention the remarkable overall polishing on the vessel; it is satiny and incredibly smooth and

a joy to touch.


The vase measures 10 1/4" in height and is 6" wide at its widest point and 2" in depth at its deepest point. It weighs

an impressive two pounds, 14 ounces just shy of three pounds; a testament to the density and weight of the Desert Ironwood. The vase is in excellent original condition and it is properly signed “L. Favorite” on the bottom side.


This marvelous sculptural vase is a modern, classic exotic combination of beautiful and unique Southwestern materials, textures and colors all contained in a wonderful and unique organic shape. It would look just as impressive and perfectly at home in a Modernist Mies van ver Rohe high-rise apartment in Chicago or New York as it would in a modest adobe home in Santa Fe or Tucson.



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