FS2010: Furniture Forward
RED TRACK: FURNITURE FORWARD
Click on a title in the alphabetical index below to view that presentation's summary. Click on a track to the right to view that track.
DESIGNING FURNITURE TO HELP WITH A NEW START
Presenter: Michael Brolly
Michael Brolly will discuss his attempt to help students realize their potential impact on the less fortunate by bringing students to meet clients and others who work with the less fortunate on a daily basis. He hopes to affect a personal transformation by taking students out of their comfort zone and challenging their assumptions about themselves, design, the future, present and less fortunate.
DEVELOP THE BUSINESS SIDE OF YOUR CREATIVITY
Presenter: Nicole Carroll
Join me for a lively discussion of insights, tips and resources on the aspects of business that you can control—no matter what is happening in the economy.
FACE TO FACE MARKETING
Subtitle: The Power of Touch in the Buying Process
Presenter: Karla Little
FURNITURE FORWARD: FURNITURE TO GO GO...
Presenter: Hayami Arakawa
With the fading ethos of "form ever follows function", I am curious to understand what the next generation of furniture enthusiasts are hearing, seeing and feeling about design, practice and impact of furniture in the 21st century.
—The Demise of 'Form Follows Function', Alice Rawsthorn, NYT, 2009
This panel will consist of up-and-coming furniture academics, artisans and instructors who will discuss how they envision furniture developing over the next 100 years.
Panel Speakers:
Vivian Beer Growing up in rural Maine, the development of hand skills and the making of objects was a part of Vivian Beer's everyday life. This understanding of design as a hands-on process has influenced the format of both process and product throughout her career. Vivian tiptoes through contemporary design, craft and sculptural aesthetics, sampling from each one. She deftly counterbalances a strong knowledge of contemporary furniture design with the history of industry and architecture to create furniture that intends to transform our expectations of and relationships to the domestic landscape. She holds a BFA from the Maine College of Art (2000) and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2004) and just completed a three-year residency at the Penland School of Craft. She lives and works in Asheville, NC and teaches and exhibits nationally and internationally.
Alabama native Keith Cochran, a second generation woodworker, makes sawdust in rural North Alabama. In the early 1980's, he began honing his craft in his father's backyard shop. After earning a BA in Industrial Design from Auburn University in 1999, he went to work building mahogany runabouts for Hugh Saint Inc. in southwest Florida. In 2001, Keith and his brother Dylan rejoined their father Randy back in the shop at Wood Studio in order to progress their family's craft of creating fine, handmade wooden furniture. Wood Studio pieces have been featured in Sundance and Southern Living.
Dana Martin Davis of Mint Hill, NC is the current CCO of DAVIS STEEL & IRON Co. Inc. She is a collector of contemporary art and museum quality craft including studio furniture as well as the primary person incharge of acquisitions for DAVIS STEEL & IRON. Recently, Mrs. Davis curated a group of Herb Jackson paintings shown in January at a Chelsea gallery as well as facilitating permanent NY representation for this North Carolina artist.
Dana is a founding member of United Way Charlotte's Women's Leadership Initiative, former board chair for The Moving Poets, she is presently serving on The Light Factory board, the Metals Museum in Memphis, and a member of the Women's Impact Fund.
Though exceedingly proud to travel with a hardhat, she periodically threatens resignation so she can paint fulltime.
Matthew Hebert creates work that deals with technology and its effects on the domestic environment. His work adds layers of use and meaning to recognizable furniture forms to generate new modes of interaction between objects, the environment, and the user. Hebert received his Bachelor of Art in Architecture from the University of California - Berkeley; and his Masters of Fine Arts at California College of the Arts. He has held teaching positions at the University of Wisconsin - Madison and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently Assistant Professor of Furniture at San Diego State University. His award winning work has been shown internationally.
Barbara Holmes was born and raised in Southern California. She attended Brigham Young University for her undergraduate studies and did her graduate work at San Diego State University where she received her MFA. Barbara has exhibited nationally and internationally, is an Alfreda Maloof scholarship recipient, and has been awarded an Artist-in-residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 2002 and at SF Recycling and Disposal in 2008. She has been teaching art for 8 years and was invited as a visiting lecturer in the Art Department at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004. Her work has been acquired by collectors Ron and Anita Wornick and is a part of the permanent collection at SFMOMA. She currently teaches at California College of the Arts and lives in Oakland, California.
Brad Reed Nelson lives in Carbondale Colorado just outside the sphere of Aspen. Besides Brad's addiction to adrenaline-based sports, Brad likes spending time with his wife and daughter. Brad maintains a studio furniture shop called Board by Design. He has developed an eclectic body of work over the last twenty years from space age androgynous to elegant patio furniture to using reclaimed timbers to create architectural forms.
In March 2010, Brad can be found at the Architectural Digest Home show in New York. This show will offer up a broad new body of work. If you think chunky when you think BRN, think again. Look for an updated www.Boardbydesign.com website in March. And if you don't know, now you know.
THE LIFE CYCLE OF FURNITURE
Subtitle: Its Environmental and Social Impact
Presenter: Hongtao Zhou
Furniture's life cycle usually starts with consuming natural resources (energy, materials, etc.) and ends with environmental aftereffects (deforestation, CO2 /chemical emission, landfill, etc.). The presentation introduces the concept of Furniture Life Cycle, which is different from any biological life cycles concerning reproduction and environmental impact. More or less, man made furniture leaves environmental and social impact when reaching the ends of life. Life Cycle Analysis is introduced to the makers to compare these furniture examples in terms of energy input, transportation issues, environmental and social impacts. If there are ways to extend the furniture life span and reduce the impacts, what are they? Several guide lines (from different organizations and industries) will be presented and discussed. One more question, what is the future green material culture in furniture? What should we do?
The furniture is derived harmlessly from Mother Nature, defined by local climate and natural resources. When it melted in summer, the ice went back to its original form (water) and end up with a completely sustainable life cycle with minimum environmental impact.
MERGING MIND & MACHINE
Presenter: Brooke M. Davis
This presentation showcases my experience of rapid prototyping in conjunction with hands on techniques/ exploration into furniture design. The presentation will show a merging of artist and designer processes into limited run production furniture. The furniture is high market furniture showcased to Interior designers for clients as well as displayed at galleries.
The process will cover concept explorations as they move back and forth through drawings, 3D iterations, and computer modeling. Eventually the entire design is created in a 3D model and then put through rapid visualization. The output can range from 3D printing of scale models and CNC milling of scale models to photorealistic renderings of work. As adjustments are made a series of 3D full scale prototypes are created top work out programming kinks. Finally the final pieces are produced for sale. The computer will be explored as a method of easy variation production for customization for sales.
NEW HAMPSHIRE FURNITURE MASTERS: HOW TO PRESENT YOUR WORK
Presenter: Jon Brooks
Panel Speakers:
Richard Oedel
David Lamb
Jere Osgood
Terry Moore
The New Hampshire Furniture Masters has been a marketing and educational force for the past 15 years. The 24 Masters combine marketing and communication efforts so that the resulting group has an impact which is greater than the sum of its parts. This is an opportunity to talk with several of the members about the methods and efforts of the group.
THE NEW MATERIALITY: DIGITAL DIALOGUES AT THE
BOUNDARIES OF CONTEMPORARY CRAFT
Presenter: Fo Wilson
Panel Speakers:
Wendy Maruyama
Shaun Bullens
Cat Mazza
Nathalie Miebach
Donald Fortesque
This panel, which includes participants from the exhibition opening in May at the Fuller Craft Museum, will discuss the questions and issues digital technologies present to them as traditional makers and how they reconcile them for themselves and in their work.
PUBLIC SEATING: BRINGING STUDIO FURNITURE INTO THE OPEN
Presenter: Mitch Ryerson
Panel Speakers:
Mags Harries - Public Artist, Cambridge MA
Christina Lanzl - Urban Arts Institute Project Manager, Boston MA
Cynthia Smith - Principal Halvorsen Design Partnership, Boston MA
Public seating is generally an afterthought for landscape designers. There is a fairly broad acceptance of the contribution public sculpture can make in the outdoor environment, but seating is often relegated to the position of a necessary evil.
Through examples of different types of existing public seating, this panel demonstrates the need and the potential for creative and exciting new work with the premise that outdoor seating has to be the "placemaking" element in public spaces.
TECHNOLOGIC: LASER–CUT FURNITURE
Presenter: Christy Oates
Teaching machines to make, market, and sell your furniture; an artist presentation of folding plywood laser-cut furniture and a discussion of creative internet marketing.
THE VALUE OF MAKING FROM A DESIGNER'S PERSPECTIVE
Presenter: Adam Simha
Adam will explore the celebration of craft in the service of design education and practice, and the creative economy. This is a designer's perspective on 'making'. Conception of designed objects, without reference to their real world genesis amounts to little more than the puffing of vain smoke rings. In order to preserve a high quality of design in general we must promote, preserve, and celebrate craft at every level, from the artisanal to the industrial. 'Making' must not only be embraced but celebrated by design educators, working designers, and by a government claiming to support the creative economy. Corporations and consumers will follow. As designers, we are charged with helping to better the physical experience of everyday life for everyone. If we allow our foundations to go by the wayside, we will ultimately be able to offer little but vapor.