the university town's luthiers and furniture studios receive it with a craftsman's discernment sharpened by generations of working hardwoods from the surrounding Indiana hill country. Here in Bloomington, where sawdust and scholarship share the same autumn air, the golden brown heartwood of Black Limba finds its way onto workbenches alongside cherry and walnut — yet nothing local carries those grey-to-black veins that streak through a flitch like charcoal drawn across parchment. Makers here have learned that the wood's tendency to darken with age means the contrast between figured and plain sections deepens over the years, rewarding patient design choices with surfaces that grow more dramatic rather than less. It is precisely this living quality — veneer that continues its slow transformation long after it leaves the press — that draws builders further down the Blue Ridge, toward the turning shops and custom cabinetmakers of Blowing Rock, where