CFDA Newsletter

Program Schedules:

July 8- Getting Paid for Design. Bill First, Tim Cozzens, Michael Koehler and Sean Scott will talk about the thorny problem of getting compensated for design work in the world of custom furniture. Come hear how these experienced designer/makers have dealt with this issue

August 12 - Michael Koehler: My work. Though new to the CFDA Michael has amassed a serious body of work which he will show and explain. Come see what he's been doing.

September 6 - Reproduction Furniture. John Gush will show examples of English and South African furniture that he has very exactingly reproduced. His shop is modestly equipped, so John relies on skill and ingenuity to deliver the spectacular craftsmanship evident in his pieces. John's work has been featured on the back cover of Fine Woodworking Magazine. Don't miss this one!

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CFDA Meeting Report:

CFDA Minutes - June10, 2008

The regular business meeting, begun at 7:20 by John Kriegshauser, started late due to a RFA show committee meeting having run long.

Thirteen members were in attendance

Two new members, Ken Koomalsingh and Brandon Fenninger were in attendance and introductions were had all around.

The Deceptive Furniture and Furnishings show deadline has past, but interestingly enough, it has been reopened again. The entries that were received were not entirely what the show jurors and committee members were looking for. Fewer acceptance notifications will be sent out than had been hoped for. Many people will be receiving rejection notices, and all that appreciably means is that the design needs to be tweaked and re-submitted.

More information to be announced.

The Rising From Ashes show is moving along swimmingly, with venues locked in and a video under production right now. But the component which is seriously lacking is monetary sponsorship. We need sponsors for this show in a major way. So if you have any companies with which you routinely do business, please solicit them for a donation. Dolly and Lloyd have recently sent out donor information sheets via email, and we have a very handsome montage of some of the pieces to help demonstrate that the show is real and that it's quality. Do your part and help us, and yourself, by finding sponsorship dollars.

The CFDA officer election is upcoming in September. Nominations for the board will be discussed in July's meeting. If you're interested in running for a seat on the board, or as an officer, please pipe up at the July meeting.

The business meeting was concluded at 7:35

Program:

Laura Drake is a fairly new member, coming to us from central Indiana, where she is a professor of industrial design at Purdue University, where she's been since 1993.

Laura earned her MFA in sculpture at Southern Illinois U and then went on to pursue a degree in industrial design. She finds furniture to be a very interesting niche that straddles between art and design. Ironically, at Purdue the Industrial Design department is actually a part of the Art Department. So in her university culture this plays exactly into her background.

Laura brought along many photos of some of her past work, as well as things that inspire her along new avenues of creativity. She is heavily influenced by a kind of post modernism akin to the work of Studio Alchemia and the efforts of Alessandro Guerriero.

She's found herself making chairs in a sort of metamorphic set of states, using them as conceptual art. Within industrial design she's carved out an identity as an object maker in fine arts as a reaction to the avante garde movement from the 1970's art schools.

Her work, and her inspirations, heavily lean into post modernism. And, because of her wide use of metal, we see a juxtaposition of the play of whimsy within the context of what would ordinarily be heavy, industrially-made forms. Her cast forms play with curves and repeating motifs. Even a bent wire chair, which started out life as a densely packed nest of bent wire in the shape of a cube and which then had the seat pan smashed in to create the shape, was dipped in brightly colored nylon. What resulted ended up admittedly looking a bit like a wire dishwashing rack, but it's a hand-made form that now appears industrially made due to the nylon dip.

She displayed a wide variety of pictures, such as a Queen Anne chair made of poplar and which was upholstered. But it was a split form, side-by- side, and which gave the illusion that the chair is a double-image, one a bit askew of the other, with one painted and the other upholstered. She showed a chair with legs and feet that echo the shape of a deer's legs and feet. And a ribbon-like chaise that had a linear actuated motor to create movement while you sat.

Her cast work has been in either aluminum or bronze, with strong leanings to abstract forms. Both materials are good, and will do the job she wants them to. But aluminum is a third the weight of bronze and is also significantly lighter on the pocket book. So the choice is often made for reasons other than color and aesthetics. Within the context of the pieces shown, and when the castings were used in context with more traditional furniture forms, the cast work serves as both structure as well as ornamentation.

Laura finds that even though a CNC machine will do the patterns, doing the work by hand is much more valuable to understand the work and to get first hand experience with the material. And since she's part of Purdue's art department, and not the technical departments, there is a dichotomy about what and how the material is presented to the students. This, seemingly, leaves her room to explore widely into an artistic aesthetic and still be true to her curriculum.

A lot of what she showed off could possibly be termed 'functional art'. The pieces played with the idea of functional forms and kept their usefulness, but she's more than poked along the edges where literalism is concerned.

And for the past year or so she's been playing with a form for a chair. She reports that she's tired of chairs that don't fit the body correctly. So to combat this she's come up with a piece which, as she put it, was a bit of a stretch from her usual ornamentalist leanings. It is the chair that she's entered for the Rising From Ashes show.

Many of us spend time and live with a design a while before we commit to a final version. And Laura has taken this a step or two beyond. After sketching it out, it began life as a cardboard model. Then a masonite model. Then a digital rendering to examine just what was going on. Then a Baltic birch mockup, more cardboard, and a full-size version from OSB. And then it was made again from clay, then a fiberglass version was made from the clay. The iteration which was brought to the meeting was made from 3/8" thick aluminum with the geometry for the shapes cut on a water jet machine. One version sported all of the gridwork joints held together with zip-ties, with the tails of the ties left bristling from the back and underside of the chair. This gave the chair a very organic, sort of 'porcupine' feel and vibe and which was very different from the rest of the iterations. And then, of course, the chair will have yet another new life being made from ash for the upcoming show.

The sheer volume of work displayed by Laura demonstrates that, besides being a very busy person, she has an enviable passion for what she does every day. She is truly living inside the life of a designer and maker.

The meeting concluded at 8:35

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Member Profile:
Lisa Elkins
www.2pointperspective.net

Lisa Richardson Elkins
founding partner - 2 point perspective: architecture + furniture
architect | ala | leed ap

Lisa Elkins is a licensed architect as well as a furniture designer with more than ten years of combined experience in San Francisco, London, and Chicago. Lisa founded 2 Point Perspective, inc. , in 2006 to pursue her two passions: modern design and sustainability.

With eco-friendly design as a core value, Lisa utilizes reclaimed wood or rapidly renewable bamboo in many of her designs. Some pieces have included scraps or reused elements as well. All pieces use low or no-VOC stains and clear coats. While these elements are important, she feels that creating well designed pieces that stand the test of time is what truly defines sustainability.

While studying architecture at Ball State University, Lisa was formally introduced to furniture design through an elective course. After studying furniture precedents and learning new fabrication techniques, she began designing and building pieces, some of which she still has today.

Lisa's Master of Architectural Design degree from The Bartlett School of Architecture in London allowed her the flexibility to explore the architectural implications of furniture in space. During her study, she designed and built furniture pieces which correlated with larger, architectural spaces in theory and in detailing.

In the two years since 2 Point was founded Lisa has designed several new pieces of furniture, each of which bears the name of a Chicago neighborhood. In some cases, the neighborhoods actually inspired the piece. As 2 Point offers one 'free furniture design' to architectural clients, some pieces are named after these prospective neighborhoods.

Lisa's recent furniture designs have been featured in Chicago Home, i4design, and CS (Chicago Social) Magazines. Also, the Hyde Park Coffee Table is currently on display at the Museum of Science and Industry's Smart Home. Select pieces are for sale at the Green Home Chicago showroom , located in the west loop, and also at Healthy Green Goods in Evanston . Moving forward, she plans to look for partners to explore mass production of some lines.

In addition to her work at 2 Point, Lisa teaches architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago and writes architectural text for Global Publishing in Sydney, Australia.