I Built The Most Beautiful Coral Reef Table

Hi, my name is Gary Burley. 16 months ago, I started a project so complex and so expensive that I couldn’t see everything coming together and actually working. What happened blew my mind. 

I bought a 200lb plate of Aluminium and started making a table base for my clay creations. I was going to make a coral reef table out of clay. All the fired creations waiting to be painted in resin-friendly paint, including all the creatures I used to know in a marine tank, all the colors, all the fishes, and the pale blond sand of a tropical rockpool.

At the end of 16 months, I would have knowledge of a project so complex it was frightening, a table that weighed a staggering 350lbs, and a receipt for a handcrafted table that has cost me a 5 figure number, and most of my sold belongings to pay for it and a table that will never be bought even for a 6 figure number… The world’s only coral reef table that looks like a reef in a bubble of seawater.

I can’t believe I wake up to this every morning. Hope you enjoy.

The finished table with a rippled water effect on the resin

The table before firing and painting

Clay coral unpainted

Clay coral fired in the oven

An island is painted, sand dunes aren’t yet

The transition

My metal signature in the centre

The beautiful diorama before the resin pour

A bubble of water with a reef in it before it was finished

The finished table

The rounded resin edge

The light from the window showing the ripples

Close up of the finished table

Clams, lobsters, octopus, starfish, sponges, anemones, shells, etc.

The 8cm thick edge

My signature under ‘water’

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