Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 25/05) - Artist Terry Pamplin is completing his latest work of painted furniture in his Old Town studio this month.

Artist Terry Pamplin is painting a six-foot armoir that will go up for bid at the Festival of Trees auction next month. He is also working on a number of sketches in oil pastels in his Old Town studio this winter, including this nude in green stockings. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

It's a six-foot armoir that will go up for bid at the Dec. 2 Festival of Trees Stanton Hospital Foundation fundraiser auction.

Pamplin has painted a number of pieces of his own furniture, including a coffee table assembled from material salvaged from the dump and a bureau covered in a collage of images of Frank Sinatra.

"There's so much you can do to make life interesting around you," he said.

He also painted a chest of drawers in his studio with a rebirth theme inspired by the cosmological writings of Zecharia Sitchen. The six handles depict the moon's phases.

The armoir features five panels and a drawer on which he painted detailed fields of fireweed growing up from a burn site. Pamplin used sprigs of pressed and dried fireweed collected from Tibbit Lake last summer for inspiration.

The legs and trim are covered in yellow, green and cerise water pigment stains that let the natural wood grain show through. The stains blend into one another, evoking the mix of colours experienced in a lush field in late spring.

The bidding starts on Friday, Dec. 2.