Built-in headboards as bedroom sculpture

Sunset, Feb, 1993

RARELY DOES HUMBLE, UTILITARIAN, BUILT-IN furniture get the chance to be turned into a work of art. The loving hands of dedicated artisans seem more frequently laid upon freestanding pieces that can be transported to a gallery or showroom.

Here you see three built-in headboards that admirably address the functional needs they're intended to satisfy--comfortable props for pillows, surfaces for clock radios and phones, shelves or drawers for books and tissues, well-placed lights for reading. All three tuck their occupants into a slight recess, offering a wonderfully cozy sense of enclosure.

But they also do more. Displaying a deft use of materials and distinctive forms, they rise to the status of bedroom sculpture. There's nothing ostentatious about these three examples; their creators simply treated them with a degree of disciplined artistry usually reserved for more traditional objets d'art. The results suggest their efforts were not in vain.