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Serial #0201

From the Ashes Tall Chest

A fire many years ago gutted the wooden portion of the old mill, leaving only the towering end walls still standing. In the intervening years, a tin-clad barn has been built in the burned-out gap. No longer used, the barn now sheds sheets of tin like dry scales. Standing on the backside of the small town, surrounded by chainlink and weeds, the buttressed end walls still gleam in the sunlight of the passing days.

From the Ashes Tall Chest pays homage to the enduring archetypal presence of old mills on the outskirts of small towns up and down the Great Plains. Face and back frames of the Tall Chest are made of 2x lumber salvaged from Grandpa Anton Bucher’s barn. Tin patches that once covered weathered siding on the south side of the barn are now door panels and cabinet side cladding. An abandoned homestead on Commission Creek in eastern Lipscomb County, Texas provided the green painted lumber for the Tall Chest door frame and baseboards. A buggy step has become the door pull.