For the first week of studio access I continued and developed my experiments at home, arranging the same and new bits of wood in response to the new spacious context of the studio. I was interested initially in trying to restage some the work I made at home, interested in the changes that would come about in doing so, however I quickly became more interested in new forms I found through play.
As I said I would, I went to Joe and experimented with making hinge corners. I found achieving the clean finish/ perfect corner I wanted more difficult than I thought. Mainly it was that the wood I was using had slightly rounded corners, also with my process could have been more inaccurate. I made two things with corners, the first using almost identical pieces of wood, and the other joining a thicker plank between two thinner planks. For the first I used a dowel which made the joint invisible, while the second used a very crudely visible screw. I am still not sure if I should hide or make visible the joint.
On my second day of studio access, I saw Joe again, this time to inlay a block of wood into another. It did it just to see what the effect having one material physically within another would be + whether it would create any kind of dialogue between the materials. The process was much longer than I had though, requiring me to mark out the exact size of square on both sides of the wood, drill holes to gouge out the area and finally chisel out the rest. In the end I don’t feel there was much of an effect
In spite of the work in the wood workshop not exactly sparking the kinds of development I had hoped for, I feel that the process of me being in the workshop and learning the technical skills of using and treating wood, in spite of it feeling slow, is development. Any knowledge, I feel, is good knowledge. I subsequently played around with the illusion of wood being physically imbedded in other pieces of wood.
In tandem to my work in the studio, while at home I discovered the contemporary furniture designer Max Lamb who I have since become quite obsessed with. Making handcrafted one off furniture using an array of traditional and very new materials and processes, his work could easily be mistaken for contemporary sculpture.
I find it interesting to contrast him with an artists I looked at before, Scott Burton. Lamb is bringing in a fine art sensibility to design. Burton brings in/ references functional design sensibilities in his art. How does knowing Lamb is a designer change how we look at his work next to Butons who we know is an artist. This is particularly interesting for Lambs seats made using natural stones which bear a great similarity, if not blatant reference, to Burtons Rock Chairs.
I was particularly struck by a work Lamb did for the Salone del Mobile furniture fair in Milan 2015 where he displayed 42 of his chairs made over the past 10 years. The chairs were set up in a circle in a large open warehouse open to the public. It brought to mind ideas of community, functionality and the boundaries between art and living. Perhaps I could make some furniture?
Overall I am not quite sure how to develop the work. Part of me feels I could endlessly find new arrangements for the pieces of wood I have, and considering the fact I am not joining them permanently it is difficult to be decisive and follow one path. How can I refine the work in the same way I would a drawing or painting, or is this the wrong state of mind for the work I am making/ sculpture itself. What am I working towards and are the formal issues of space, materiality and ephemerality enough to carry the work alone? Lastly I am finding the reduced studio access makes it difficult to really just get into working and leaves too much time to reflect and overthink what I am making. This is something I know I simply need to and will adjust to. We will see what I do next.
Artist Reference
Carle Andre
Max Lamb
Oisin Stanley-Stephenson 