Walnuts are most often associated with intelligence, wisdom, and inspiration.

Greek mythology says that Prometheus, an immortal titan who rebelled against Zeus by stealing fire from Mount Olympus, gave a single walnut shell containing all the secrets of human future knowledge to his brother Epimetheus as he left him to create the human race.

The term derives from the French word “chatoyer”, which means “to iridesce, like a cat’s eye.” If you’ve ever seen the stone tiger’s eye, you get the idea. In woodworking, chatoyance is a similarly striking optical quality in which areas of light and dark grain seemingly shimmer or shift depending on the angle of view.

Live-edge defines the unfinished edge of the woodwork. It is the periphery of wood not altered by hand tools or woodworking machinery. As a result, the untouched ends retain the original characteristics of a tree; its shape, texture, and sometimes even its bark.

Sapwood is the living part of a tree where the sap and water flow. All wood initially grows as sapwood. As the tree ages, the innermost layers of sapwood turn to heartwood, which is no longer living and does not transport nutrients. Sapwood usually has a lighter color than the heartwood that it surrounds.