CFDA Newsletter

Announcements:

CHANGE OF FEBRUARY CFDA MEETING DATE
FEB 17, THE THIRD TUESDAY

HELP WANTED - See CFDA YahooGroups re request for sources of quality feet and legs

Program Schedules:

February: The February program will be a forum discussion on Furniture in Recession, led by John Kriegshauser, Bill Groot and Dwayne Sperber.

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CFDA Meeting Report:

CFDA Minutes - Board Meeting January 20, 2009

Held at Chris Brandel's. In attendance: Rob Frazier, Bill Groot, Hal Link, Chris Brandel, Dolly Spragins, John Kriegshauser, Lloyd Natof, Jamie Stevens, Matt Seiler.

1. Treasurer's Report: Lloyd said we have about $4700 in the bank. We have two new members. Hal said he would contact and greet these new members. Windows Vista is not compatible with our version of QuickBooks; an upgrade will be necessary.

2. Newsletter: Rob said that the Member's profile section was running down because most of the active members have been covered. The less active members were less likely to cooperate.

3. Secretary: Matt wondered whether his minutes were running too long from too much detail, but the consensus was that they made for good reading.

4. Meetings' Programs:

? February's program, Furniture in Recession, will be a forum lead by John. Bill Groot will participate in addition to Dwayne Sperber. This must be held on the third Tuesday of February and the members must be notified. The Website should be changed as well.

? Lloyd will lead a program on built in cabinetry but not until June.

? Bill Groot knows a man versed in technical lamp design. He will see when that man is available.

? Dolly suggested that we might have a meeting at the Robbin's power plant, which will burn wood waste to generate electricity. Ed Kalabek (sp?) is the man in charge of this but the project is stalled for the moment.

? Lloyd suggested that we develop programs around period styles or the work of significant designers rather than just featuring the work of our own members.

? The One That Got Away--a program about pieces designed but not built; chance for interesting back stories.

? Commercial Pieces--Pieces designed for production rather than craftsmanship

5. Rising From Ashes

? Dolly reported that the WUT would be making some money available as compensation for the effort our members put into the show. Just how this money would be characterized on their balance sheet was in discussion. We think we could use this money to fund future shows.

? We currently have three future venue opportunities for this show: U of I at Champaign, which we didn't like, the U of Wisconsin which sounds interesting because they are offering funding, and the Karla Little Furniture/Craft show in Milwaukee, which is offering money to bring the show there as well as reduced cost space for CFDA member booths (see below).

6. Lisa Brophy is an attorney who is on our board. We're unsure whether to address her as Lisa Brophy or Lisa Pekkala. Chris will clarify this.

7. Deceptive Design Show

? Chris said that both the IDSA and the CCGT expressed satisfaction with the show and the public interest in it, though attendance numbers were not available.

? Chris says that he got three sales inquiries.

? The show got good press even though the show committee did not make a PR effort.

? The jurying was controversial and many excluded applicants could not understand the jury's logic.

? Chris will contact Judith Diassalliss about linking back and forth with the Deceptive website.

8. Future Shows

? Dwayne Sperber has been talking to Karla Little about moving the RFA show to the Milwaukee furnishings show in September.

? Karla offered in addition to make six adjacent 10 x 10 booths available to the CFDA for $3000, a fraction of the normal price. We thought we could rent these booths with CFDA money and offer these booths to interested members either for free or auction them off, particularly if interest exceeded space.

? A pile of show ideas were reviewed. The following were thought to have potential.

Tables: No Resevations--Just a table show

Arches--this could be about furniture that designed around curves

Design Drawings Show--This could be held in a small gallery with only wall space.

CFDA Garage Sale--Maybe for charity? Maybe an on-line thing?

Guerilla marketing? Street Fair?

Using Stock--furniture made from stock millwork components or steel sections

Bedroom or Living Room Theme--furniture made just for a certain room of the house

Light Work: furniture that lights up--popular idea. (Crest Lighting on Sheffield and BHNKO lighting at around 60th and Harlem)

A/V Furniture--Technology Furniture with media storage that doesn't necessarily look techical

? These show ideas were reviewed unfavorably.

Architecture as Furniture--we've done this already.

Transformative Furniture--some thought this had no meaning, other thought that it might mean convertible function furniture in which case it would be difficult to show.

Casual Furniture--this sounded like low craft which was not CFDA's style

Chicago theme--Somehow this did not sound like a studio furniture topic

Urban Wood Show--this is just a new version of the Rising from Ashes Show

CFDA Garage Sale--Maybe for charity? Maybe an on-line thing?

Guerilla marketing? Street Fair?

Inexpensive Furniture Shows (price ceiling)--We aren't about low cost furniture

Modular Furniture--designed to reconfigure, but how could that be displayed?

Modulars designed by several people--not playing to our strengths

Found Object Furniture--inherently one off, without the right object you're in trouble.

Vignettes--Three or more makers collaborate on a group. Too much time spent on collaboration; the teams would be stylistically shackled together.

Laundry Room Show--might work for the IDSA

Out of Scale Show--too much sculpture, not enough saleable furniture

Saturday Morning furniture--provoked sex jokes

Newel Posts: stylizing newel posts--none of us are stair builders

? Ideas not discussed

The Perfect Marriage: wood and color

Explorations of the Surface--glass, metal, texture, carving, paint

Ideas grown in nature

• Next Board Meeting Tuesday, Mar. 24. Mark your calendars!

CFDA MEETING MINUTES- JANUARY 13, 2009

13 members and two guests in attendance.

Chris Brandel called the meeting to order at 7:10 with new business.

The Deceptive show has closed, and the door was left open by the Cultural Center for future shows with us. The press that came with the show was relatively good, with newspaper, magazine and website articles.

Dwayne Sperber has been named our Single Point Of Contact for new show and venue ideas. As the SPOC he'll coordinate it all and report back with condensed and qualified information.

John reported that he and Dolly had met with Michele Beaulieux regarding the RFA show and the continued financial involvement from the Wood Utilization Team. There is interest in continuing to fund the CFDA and the RFA show, in particular, beyond the current tenure at the Green Tech Center. Details are evolving, as the WUT is in the application process for a second grant right now. If they receive those monies we'll have an opportunity to possibly tap into that. More details to be forthcoming.

The RFA show looks to be hitting the road in 2009, traveling (well!) beyond the state lines. We have been invited to be a featured display for this fall's Fine Furniture and Furnishings show to be held in downtown Milwaukee. Dwayne has been our point man in dealing with the show's owner, Carla Little. Dolly has recently been involved and this one-weekend opportunity looks like it'll come to pass, based on indications today. We represent a newscast/print news item for them, and our 'message' is timely. Wisconsin is just beginning to face the reality of the EAB infestation.

Very interestingly, we have a side opportunity for this show. As a separate line item (and physically separated from the RFA display) the CFDA looks to be offered a discounted rate for booth space. More details to be forthcoming, but it's possible that we may be able to split up the booth costs between interested members and have our work offered as part of the for-sale offerings within the show. More details need to be solidified regarding amount of space, whether we'll be internally jurying this process, as well as the financials. But it's always better to have more opportunities than fewer.

Additionally, and as an addendum news item that occurred a few weeks after the meeting, an organization in Miami, Florida has picked up on the RFA show and is showing motivated interest in hosting it at the end of March. The Home Design and Remodeling Show ( www.homeshows.net ) reaches out to very affluent homeowners and sports spokesperson involvement from the HGTV lineup of on-camera personalities. Dolly is entrenched in the details and minutiae of this at the moment, and information will continue to be released. But given the high level of exposure that this represents it's not an opportunity we want to let slip between our fingers.

As a tangent idea to these selling shows, we tabled the possible need for the CFDA, as an organization, to add to our banking capacities and to begin accepting credit cards. It would allow members to pay our annual dues via plastic, and for any of our future shows it could provide a cohesive Point-of-Sale service for the members displaying in the shows. The Board will be taking up further details and logistics relating to this idea.

And our two visitors for the evening, Camille Kurowski and Matthew Healy, were welcomed with introductions all around.

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Program
Chris Brandel.

Chris is a designer for Bretford, a contract furnishings manufacturer that supplies to schools, AV supply houses, and does contract work for OEM suppliers. Anyone who attended last year's tour with Chris saw the scope and breadth of Bretford's operation.

Chris's latest project is named "Rhombi". It is a rhombus-shaped table which was originally designed by Cessaroni. The design criteria were that it had to be mobile, have a reconfigurable, UL-listed power system, be competitive in the marketplace, be environmentally friendly (and qualify for LEED points if at all possible), to be adaptable, to be nestable, to look good when folded up, to be designed for mass manufacture and finally, to be simple to assemble once delivered to the end user.

Chris shared slides of CAD renderings of the finished item and its component pieces. These 2-D designs on the page were brought to life as we passed around various revisions of castings, extrusions and other elements that were actually used in the fabrication of the table.

One of the reported challenges is that some of the critical die-castings are made in China. And testing here in the States of the completed units revealed some issues with racking, which resulted in inevitable part failures. This was also paired with an evolving requirement to add additional sizes to the product (which were mandated after the manufacturing process had already begun!). So the changes to the proportions of the design was paired with the physical limitations of the components used in the manufacture. And these tests, and changes, revealed some catastrophic failures of a few of the components.

The point of origin of the component failures, which were either caused by or contributed to the racking, was ultimately identified and design modifications were made. And, inevitably, this lead to more than a little bit of negotiation with the Chinese manufacturers in order to get the tolerances and specifications for new pieces to be revised, recast and delivered. International lead times being what they are, this process was not exactly an overnight turnaround. But the new design, and newly minted pieces, did solve the problems.

For the environmental benefits, Chris and his team sought out post-industrial recycled components if at all possible. And for the course they realized a percentage point or two in cost savings. Not a lot, but definitely worth having done the exploration. This segued into a short discourse about the financial and logistical issues with manufacturing with 'green' materials. Ultimately the dialog has to come down to an over-arching economics evaluation of doing it vs. not doing it.

Throughout the presentation we were treated to seeing some of the first-hand issues with bringing a new object into the marketplace. And since many of us in the group are boutique designers and fabricators, this perspective was fresh and exciting. It was a rare insight into the macro world after having spent the day within our somewhat more micro world. It's opportunities for this change in perspective that sparks new ideas and new capabilities.

The program concluded at 8:45

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