A golden trout, its green and pink and gilded body still glistening from river waters, appears caught in a moment of rest on the surface of a knotty pine coffee table with peeled log legs.
And so detailed are the fishing flies carved along the table’s edges, that one is tempted to reach down and pick one up. Another fly is carved in the bottom of a drawer, as if left there by a fisherman.
The table is one of Randy Potter’s nature furniture series featuring deer, bears, loons, ducks and other wildlife themes. For the past several years, the Deerfield artist has expressed his love for the Southwest by designing art furniture with arrowhead handles, end tables with stagecoaches carved and painted in its center and an 8-foot-long credenza with eight kachina dolls carved on its top.
WGN radio personality Bob Collins has been one of Potter’s best clients. In fact, Collins says Potter has designed and created most of the furniture in his house-from tables to armoires to beds.
A coffee table in the nature series, such as the trout, sells for $1,500. “There’s a lot of hours in there,” explains Potter, including time taken to seal the table with 10 coats of polyurethane so a river can run over it without doing damage.
Some of Potter’s work is displayed in the window of his shop, Potter’s Paint and Wallpaper, 816 Waukegan Rd., Deerfield; 708-945-2286. He also will do custom work.