*** CFDA meeting May 11, 2004.... with guest speaker Barry Newstat on fine furniture****

"A gathering of folks interested in creating with natural materials--from beginners to pros, rustic furniture makers, craftsmen and artists, woodworkers & carvers, basket makers, gardeners and naturalists, plus those who are just curious about it all. Demonstrations, hands-on workshops, discussions and tours."

CFDA member Tor Faegre will lead some demos of furniture-making and bamboo work. Contact him if you have an interest in attending (847-869-1969).Contact: www.woodlanders.com

- Past CFDA president Julie Risko-Neely and her husband Ken have a 6 weeks old baby boy, "Calder". A future furniture maker and sculptor? Congatulations!

- PROGRAM SCHEDULE  (John Kriegshauser)

Tuesday May 11 Barry Newstat will talk about his furniture work and his career as a purist woodworker. Barry's work emphasizes solid wood and joinery. In that way his work is an outgrowth of the centuries old tradition, practiced by the great names of contemporary woodworking. Barry has just come back from leading a workshop at the Anderson Ranch Craft Center in Snow Mass, Colorado. No woodworker should miss this one!

Tuesday, June 8 The High Point Furniture Show will be the topic. Chris David, David Orth and Lee Weitzman will share their experiences and impressions of the show.

Note: These two programs have been switched from the schedule published earlier because of a conflict.

In attendance: Chris Brandel, Alfred Connell, Jr., Lee Connell, Cathy David, Tor Faegre, Bill First, Matt Hebert, Andrew Jackson, Kevin Kitzman, John Kriegshauser, Dan Kowalik, Patrick Maloney, Pete Radecki, Sean Scott, Matt Speer, John Sirovatka, Jan Sopoci, Robert Thorne, Curt Vevang.

Reports:
- Patrick Maloney found a garden apartment for weekend shows the price would be $1500 per month. 
- Tor Faegre asked for articles for the new, online newsletter. 
- J. Kriegshauser reported that the Cultural Center curatorial committee had yet to review our show proposal. 
- Pete Radecki asked the group to identify photos from old shows. These show photos will soon be accessible from the CFDA website. 
- Matt Speer is waiting for the group portfolio book to be completed so he can take it around to galleries.

Announcements:
- Antanas Abraitis is working with Judy Saslow on a show for this year. Also he is working to develop exhibit opportunities at the Merchandise Mart during Neocon. 
- Chris Brandel has created a CFDA group site on Yahoo. This will enable members to post questions and announcements, which will be automatically e-mailed to all the members who have enrolled on the site. To enroll contact cbrndl@yahoo.com 
- John Kriegshauser showed the brochure for the Furniture Society Conference in Savannah, Georgia. He also showed galvanized steel container that had been patinaed using a recipe supplied last meeting by Ross Fiersten.

Proposals:
 Antanas and Chris Brandel floated the suggestion that we have a competitive show within the CFDA. The idea would be to acknowledge the best work of the year by awarding a prize. The judging would be by a panel of outsiders.

Sean Scott 
Finding early on that he had an aptitude for both technology and art, Sean decided to major in industrial design. Upon graduation he worked for a firm doing fitness products. The first project he worked on was an exercise bike called "Roadmaster." Next he worked on the "Buttmaster," which was actress Suzanne Sommers' follow up to her famous "Thighmaster." Sean reports that in person she is very nice.

Sean then went to work for a metal fabricator in Indianapolis call Bomar. They based much of their operation around a big industrial laser cutter, and Sean enjoyed designing around this machine's capabilities. Also at this job he became involved in the construction of upholstered furniture, and he found that he liked furniture well enough to specialize in it.

To focus on furniture he took a job at Niedermaier, which is a store fixture and display company here in Chicago. Here he worked on the fiberglass sofas and armchairs for Sweet Home Chicago and on the interior of the Marilyn Miglin Showroom. But the job included the design of trade show booths and graphic design assignments as well. He remained at Niedermaier for seven years during most of which he served as design director.

Sean showed an image from his student days of a CD rack that had as its base a concrete cube. Later he showed recent images of dining and end tables employed concrete or wood cubes as bases from which projected an array of steel rods. The glass tops rested on the tips of these rods. It's an idea he seems determined to perfect.

Sean describes his work as having a "hard edged, modernist look." He sights new technology and pop culture as sources of his inspiration. He really responded to the Corian Competition of a few years ago, designing both a lamp, the "C3 Luminaire," and a molded Corian coffee table. He also showed a group of benches and low tables made of slabs of acrylic supported on stainless steel legs. Finally he showed his OVA collection of chairs CNC routed from Baltic Birch plywood. Though Sean is very adept using 3D Studio, he relies heavily on physical models and prototypes, which he typically produces himself.

Sean opened his own design office two years ago, and he has remained very busy. He credits his success to a savvy, cost effective marketing effort. The foundation of it is the humble postcard, which he has printed by Rocket Postcards of San Francisco, and which he sends to a mailing list of all his old clients as well as prospective clients. He got a booth at the last CDS show and backed it up with a press kit and tear sheets on his products. He made sure the Tribune got a computer rendering of his OVA chair in advance of the show, and it paid off when they used it as the title shot in the Style Section. Sean jumped at the opportunity to participate in Mary McCall's Celebrity Chair Auction, because of the low cost, high quality exposure.

See photos of Sean's work on his website www.S2Designonline.com.

A recent review in American Craft (Oct. 2003 by Bruce Metcalf) made some interesting points on the intersection of furniture and sculpture. The article reviewed a show of furniture by Jack Larimore in Philadelphia. Jack is a founder of the Furniture Society and has numerous pieces of commissioned sculpture in public places in the Philly area, so he straddles the fence that divides function and non-function. The article asks of the objects in the show, "Is it furniture or is it sculpture?" The article continues: "Woodworkers have been heading into this territory for more than 30 years. The presumption seems to be that functionality is an onerous restriction, and that a furniture/sculpture hybrid offers more opportunity for free expression and unfettered exploration. Yet, there's also a hidden presumption that craft should not be repudiated entirely. Otherwise why not just make sculpture and dispense altogether with the trappings of function and skill? One reason is that furniture makers have proven to be lousy sculptors. Part of the problem us that they seem to define sculpture as form in space, period. This definition--wildly accepted in the woodworking community--harkens back to the early 20th century, when sculpture first broke away from representation. Freed from figuration, sculptors could directly address mass and void. But it is a long time since they have dealt with only those issues. The field is now dominated by the influence of conceptual art, and sculpture has no essential subject. Many furniture makers, however, seem not to have heard the news."

Well, there's some food for thought in this statement, but it's also typical of the type of craft critiques that American Craft Magazine fosters. A constant carping about functional craft that's trying to move into the high art world and fails at the attempt. And they like to stay aloft from any of the problems of the marketplace. Many a fine sculptor has turned to furniture because people are willing to buy a functional object. Conceptual art is willfully difficult to understand. It's nice to have a "concept" in your living room to draw attention to your status as a collector of cutting edge art, but you run the risk that you bought the wrong "concept" and it's now an embarrassment. Even a poorly designed chair is useful as furniture. And people like to buy functional objects over pure sculpture. Some of the more successful craft artisans make a living selling small sculptures disguised as clocks. If they remove the clocks their sales would plummet. Jewelry is really miniature sculpture, it's just not labeled as such. So what's wrong with working out your sculpture ideas as clocks or chairs or tables? It may be fun to play with ideas about conceptual art, but if you would like to make even part of a living as an artist/artisan try something else, please.