Decorative Finishes are for Decorative Objects

I discontinued my bestselling chair finishes at the height of their popularity.

Rod+Weave Chair. Copper plating over polished steel frame, veg tan leather. 2014

In 2014, when I re-settled in Long Beach, I made a few versions of the Rod+Weave Chair to show in the Architectural Digest Home Design Show in NYC.

I decided to get a frame plated in copper. The photo above is the very first version.

I made the frames myself, using the same solid hex rod steel that I drove down from Portland - where I found the stock originally.

Pause - The hex rod that I use to make these frames was originally found at a salvage yard in Portland, Or.

The sticks are 12 feet long, and were $5 each.

Each chair frame cost me $10 in material.

The first official purchase order I received from Anthropologie, 10 chairs - all from that original stock.

$10 a frame in material.

Unpause -

The Copper Frames! Back in LA.

You can make anything in LA in any finish.

I found a plater, I dropped off the frames. The plater polished the frames and then plated them.

And then lacquered over the freshly plated finish.

Because all these metal finishes tarnish, corrode, change color, and (don’t say it) patina over time.

So almost all decorative finishes - finishes on the surface - need a clear coat/protective layer so that the finish doesn’t tarnish.

Copper tarnishes fast.

Brass tarnishes fast.

Polished copper looks like Rose Gold.

And Rose Gold sounds luxury AF.

We went on to make a lot of these chairs over the next 2-3 years.

Our fabrication partners came up with production methods to streamline the process.

They pre-cut the hex rod to each component, then placed the rod on a sled to go through a wide belt sander.

The sled would cradle the hex rod - get sent through the sander, then rod would get rotated to the next face, and it would get sent through the sander again.

This essentially smoothed out any pits, or tooling marks in the steel to prepare for polish.

180 grit or something.

Then each component would go a couple miles down the road to a polishing vendor who would polish each component to a mirror finish.

Then the components would go back to the metal fabricators and into the tooling and jigs to form the precut lengths into parts.

The matching arm rest pieces would enter the bending machine - 2 bends each, then done.

Those parts would then only need minor touch-ups from tooling marks.

Then the seating portion - 2 bent components - the sides of the seat and back.

2 cross bars.

All the components would get placed into a jig for the welder.

Tig welded.

Then final clean up of those welded areas.

Then wrapping the frame so it stays perfect in transit 10 miles to the platers.

THEN the frames are ready to the electro-plate.

Brass Plated frames

The metallic finishes looked so good with every leather.

We literally could not go wrong.

Polished brass, antique brass, polished copper AKA rose gold.

We even had a few customers who order unfinished brass.

Which meant - they wanted the brass plating with no clear coat. They wanted the finish to patina.

They wanted a ‘Living Finish.’

The problem is - plated brass is not the same as solid brass, or bronze, or copper.

It’s sooooooooooooooooo thin.

And it has lacquer on top.

Lacquer is not a great finish for furniture.

It doesn’t jive well with our body oils.

It’s down at the bottom of the list of good finishes for a high touch area - like the armrest of a chair.

Gold Leaf + Lacquer does not equal DURABLE.

Satin Brass plated finish over steel.

To clarify what I mean by Gold Leaf.

Electro Plating is basically electro chemically bonding THE THINNESS of Gold Leaf to another metal surface.

That’s the visual.

When you see “PLATED” you need to think “GOLD LEAF.”

Which is why plated jewelry needs to get “re-dipped” every few years.

That dip is electro-plating.

So if your jewelry needs to get re-dipped - then your chair frame needs to get re-dipped too.

If you enjoy using the chair, you are going to touch it a lot.

And what happens to things that get touched a lot?

Well, let’s just say, they don’t stay the same.

And they don’t stay the same faster in areas of high-touch.

And you can’t polish a plated finish, because it is as thin as gold leaf - you’ll polish it right off!

The lacquer starts to get gummy, and then the plating starts to flake off.

Flake. Peel.

The fidgety kind. The kind that makes you want to peel a bit more when you sit in it.

There isn’t really anything charming about it - it just looks bad.

If there are any pin holes in the lacquer finish, air will get underneath and start to tarnish the frame too.

I had to “liquidate” a lot of inventory for tiny little freckles all over the frames.

The really unfortunate thing, is that the lacquer finish really complicates the process of refinishing the frame. Because the lacquer needs to be fully chemically stripped and cleaned (ew) - and it’s never quite as good as the first run, so a layer of impurities get embedded into another layer of plating, and another round of heavy chemical waste management that needs to go somewhere..,

I discontinued plated finishes after 3 years.

It was just long enough to see how the finishes held up in the real world - where people touch and use things.

BECAUSE - say it together now - Decorative Finishes are for Decorative Objects!

E

Rancho Re-Wraps

In 2012, I was contacted by the new owners of Ojai Rancho Inn to make some chairs for their patios.

Actually, looking back through the email threads - I was contacted to make ALL the furniture around the Rancho. I just saw a quote I put together with drawings for the pool area, and some bedside tables, and patio tables, etc…

What we ended up deciding on was re-wrappinng these vintage lawn chairs in leather.

I found an invoice - and it looks like I charged $150 per chair to re-wrap in leather.

But then each chair that I found had a varying price.

My invoice indicates that the chairs in photo one were found at garage sales, thrift stores, estate sales, and the average price was around $10.

So that group was $165 per chair.

The second group had an average price of $35, I indicated, those I invoiced at $185 a piece.

The total invoice was for $4385.

But here’s the twist, I was living up in Portland, Or, about to hit my last semester of graduate school.

Good thing they were folding chairs! I drove all of these down to Ojai, then went down to stay with my parents.

Then drove back up to Portland, stopping to DJ a wedding on my way back up.

Wild times!

E

Cognitive Bypassing of Cognitive Behavior in Product Design

I’m not a big fan of everyday products becoming art projects to then become better products.

Perhaps, I should start by defining an “everyday product’ first.

An everyday product/object are the type of object that you learn the name of when you are learning a new language - like in a textbook or flashcard.

These cards are often called “picture cards.”

Common objects. Normal objects. Everyday objects.

The stuff that is not negotiable.

Things that look and do the same thing for everyone, in any language.

Chairs are chairs, toothbrushes are toothbrushes, etc…

Things that either work or don’t. And the degree of the objects workability is measurable.

There are hammers that are better at hammering than others.

An everyday object shares many of the qualities of a tool.

That is, these things don’t exist on their own. These things were created to extend our human abilities in millions of different ways.

These tools provide solutions to old problems that we’ve been solving forever - technological iteration.

Tools, and specialty tools, have a very narrow set of uses - and when they are not being used, what the heck are they supposed to do?

We store a lot of stuff that we only use for minutes a day.

Apparel and clothing are tools for keep us safe and protected from the elements.

I live in Southern California.

I have 2 “big” jackets that are almost 20 years old that I will have for the rest of my life, because I only wear them a few times a year.

This would not be the case if I lived in Minnesota.

What prompted this thought train this morning, is a video of a chair that is going around on Instagram.

I’m familiar with this artist’s work, but this piece struck me as odd - but also telling.

It’s a chair, that has a swiveling component that acts as a clothes hanger.

Because - we all know what it is like to be picking out an outfit, and then we just throw the options on a chair.

The artist/designer, in this case, has made a product that solves a problem that “we all experience.”

She created a “lazy susan” mechanism with a railing - so you can drape your clothes, and rotate it around the back of the chair, so you can sit in the chair as well.

But, what is the actual problem? I’m not totally clear on that to start.

The problem is that I have a half dirty clothes in my room?

Because it seems like the problem is connected to something like - not having enough time to put clothes away in a given moment/context.

Or as the artist mentions in the video above - what do you do with all your half-dirty clothes that aren’t hamper ready, but you don’t want to put on your rack?

So it’s about space?

If we reduce it all the way down - it’s either a problem of time or space.

There is either not enough space for the thing you need to do, or not enough time.

The problem then is a “deficit of time” or a “deficit of space.”

The cardinal error, it seems, is when one misidentifies the problem one needs to solve by conflating space and time within the solution.

How does this chair create more time for the user?

It doesn’t.

And in this case, it actually takes up space, and increases another set of actions to use it.

Thus, the same amount of space being used as a normal chair, but then this new chair requires more time to use it properly.

Not to mention that the chair, cannot be used in other spaces in the house.

Well, it can, but it doesn’t look like other chairs.

Does this solve the problem, or create more of the same problem?

Does the chair/clothes rack help you make decisions about your half-dirty clothes?

Or does it just create another space to hold them, hoping you might get to them when you have time?

Do half dirty clothes become less dirty over time?

Is the overall goal to reduce wash cycles, reducing water and detergent use?

I’m struck by how often we think that the solution to our problems requires either buying more/new things, or adopting new processes, procedures, techniques, rather than just doing wayyyyyyyyy less.

I’m not a psychologist, and I’ve never read anything specific on cognitive behavioral therapy.

But! I do encounter this type of thinking with interiors often.

So I will put this into a personal anecdote to end.

If I had a client who said, “hey Eric, I’d like you to design a chair that I can hang my half dirty clothes on,”

I would respond - Why do you need a chair to hang your half dirty clothes on? You either need a chair, or a clothes rack, both of which you can get in any style, shape, color, country of origin, etc… and if you change your habits, you actually don’t need either one.

I talk myself out of a lot of potential work, but my job is to not cognitively bypass the cognitive apparatus that we engage to identify problems and solutions.

A novel problem may require a novel solution, but when that solution is a product we get novelty.

Novelty wears almost instantly.

Because novelty is privileging the emotional impact of a product, not what the product produces in your life.

If the product creates a set of procedures that are cumbersome, and don’t actually address the real problem, then the product isn’t going to relieve our mental load, it will only compound it.

Peace, love, cactus.

E

Inventing Shapes That Already Exist

Connecting Lines to Make Space.

I invented this shape in 2011.

In the metal shop, I cut 4 inch lenths of 1/4” steel wire.

I welded those short sticks into a hexagon shape.

I made 3 hexagons, and then I stood them up and leaned them on each other.

I thought it might be a good shape for a pendant light frame - that’s the scale I was working on.

That’s how it started.

I cut some sticks, welded them together, looked at them, and then had a conscious thought: I wonder what this would look like bigger?

So I decided to make it bigger.

Hex Volume 2011

I had a mentor at the time who told me I could draw it up on the computer to get a sense of the scale. He didn’t use those exact words - but that is an odd phrase that I want to pick apart.

Yes, you can see a visual representation of what the scale might look like on a 2D interface - but “sensing the scale” is something that can only happen at scale.

I spent 30 minutes on the computer before I called it quits, walked into the wood shop and metal shop and just made the thing.

That was the last time I made a serious attempt at trying to draw something on the computer - Fall 2011.

Rather than spending hours drawing a thing to look at, I just went out and made it.

1 1/2” square tubing. 2”x2” stakes.

A miter saw, some quick welding and sanding, and I had the form up!

Looking through my files for these photos I typed in “tetrahedron” or “truncated” or “truncated tetrahedron” or “tetra” - and I couldn’t find it.

The reason is because I did not know this shape was called a Truncated Tetrahedron until Jonathan Nesci commented that on Instagram an entire year later when I made a new version of it.

Because i thought I invented a shape.

I thought I invented a new form.

If I knew the name of the form I would have just typed it into a search bar and looked at all the precedents.

And there are plenty. I had no idea.

I think the reason I didn’t “know” is because I approached the shape from connecting lines, rather than connecting planes.

I was not a planar thinker at the time - I was still in my LINES phase of development.

Everything was lines. I’m in a different phase now.

This morning I thought how different it would have been if I drew it in the computer - if it was a little tiny widget form that I could move around with a flick of my finer. Scale up, scale down.

Duplicate 100 times. Group together new forms.

The tools we use to explore our forms will inform our forms.

What prompted my memory of this form today was a post on my Instagram memories:

Dec 7 2012 Version of the form with round tubing, and wood closet rods.

Dec 7 - Deck The Halls, Ojai Rancho Inn

I still have these brackets!

And next week I’m going to set up something very similar to this at the Ojai Rancho Inn for Deck The Halls!

California Roundover

I went to school in Oregon to become a California Artist.

Bar of Soap Table, detail. 2013

I sat down to write about these tables that I started making in grad school.

At the time, the Live Edge Slab table craze was going bonkers in North America.

Everyone was making tables out of walnut with a live edge.

The difference in price was dependent on how well you finished the wood, and how you constructed the base.

BDDW was making some cast bronze bases, and all the wannabees were making copies.

For the context of this post it was 2010/11-13ish.

I had a client who ordered a live edge coffee table in oak. They wanted the bark intact.

And all I could think of was how that was going to flake off in their house.

And how uncomfortable the edge was going to feel.

How do they use it?

When I got up to Portland for school, I decided to make a coffee table.

Actually, I went to a local lumber yard, and saw a small slab, 5/4”, or Oregon Black Walnut, and thought - I”m going to make a coffee table out of you.

I keep having this recurring realization that I “happen upon” my designs. My ideas feel very linked to a very direct response with a material. Especially with wood

When I started doing these tables, I called them ‘Bar of Soap” tables.

The bladed out lines and overall silhouette looked like a bar of soap on it’s last few uses..

I am pretty sure this is the first table from that series. Dec 2011.

I made quite a few of these tables while in school. Some of them were really bad. The proportions we wonky.

And I hate almost all the bases.

But that was the vibe. Folks wanted a novel alternative to the hairpin leg.

Bar of Soap Coffee Table, 2012

2012

Some are better than others.

Recently, I picked up a slab - and the same thought occurred - I’m going to make something with you.

It’s been in my studio now for almost 2 months. And I keep looking at it, wondering what it wants to be.

I was familiar with the term “California Roundover,” a term that emerged to describe a trend or style of shaping wood organically, and rounding over the edges.

I honestly did not know this until this week.

I don’t look at much wood furniture - and I thought thee term might’ve applied to an exagerrated bullnose style treatment. Like using a really large roundover bit on a router.

But actually, the ‘California Roundover’ is exactly what I was doing with the Bar of Soap tables.

I followed the line and grain and patterns emerging within the wood and tried to work with it.

Rather than prescribing my form over the wood - I am looking to see what the wood wants to do, what it wants to be for a while.

Bar of Soap Table - 2013

New Slab of Walnut to shape

I think I’m going to start doing tables like this again.

I’m only using wood from Sub/Urban reclaimed - via local suppliers.

And I think I should call them California Roundover Tables - and then start numbering them…

Mining the Object or Mining Your Mind

Yesterday afternoon, I took my younger daughter to Knott’s Berry Farm.

It’s a 15-20 min drive from our house. We made it in 17 minutes yesterday!

We walked through the gates at 4:05pm and did a blitz of rides and snacks in 2 hours! btw, we have annual passes - so we do this often.

It’s great. Highly recommend! Knott’s is chill.

But here’s why I am starting with Knott’s - it’s because of the Calico Mine train ride.

My daughter asked, “Dad, where does this train go, in a mind?”

I reply sincerely, “Yes honey, in an old mine.”

“Like an old man’s brain?”

“Wait, what?’

She says in a frustrated tone - “Dad. His brain, his mind?” [pointing to her head].

“Ohhhhhhhhh! Oh this ride is going into a “mine” not a “mind.”

Lol. It was a great parenting moment.

We then went on a to have a conversation about what a mine is, the history, etc…

But then we were also able to circle back and imagine what it would be like to train through your brain!

Brain Train!

The thought I want to connect this brain train to is connected to the post yesterday about meaningful objects.

I was reading this morning in God, Human, Animal, Machine, by Meghan O’Gieblyn, looking for a reference for another quote - and stumbled upon some Object Oriented Ontology related content.

One of the main tenets of OOO is to not over or undermine objects.

“Mining” is a very popular term in contemporary art - I heard it a lot in graduate school.

A sentence like, “the idea that ________ …. there is just something to mine there….”

I dislike these statements, as they use too many words.

Can it be okay to say “I am having a thought, and I’m going to think about it for a while.”???

We go out of our way to tell other people essentially: I am thinking about it.

I am going to continue thinking thoughts for a little while.

My thought this morning, tied to yesterday’s post, is how we go mining for meaning.

I have a difficult time with Art that anthropomorphizes objects. I mean professional art.

Because anthropomorphizing anything is hardwired to our biology.

In God Human Animal Machine, O’Gieblyn sites work from Anthropologist, Steward Guthrie, that “our tendency to anthropomorphize is an evolutionary strategy. All perceptual guesses come with payoffs in terms of survival.”

Essentially, it is in our interest, on a biological level, to perceive things this way.

“All of us have inherited this perceptual schema, and our tendency to overimbue objects with personhood is it’s unfortunate side effect. We are constantly, obsessively, enchanting the world with life it does not possess.”

In the world of sculpture - there is a tendency to take random things and put them together to make a figure. Often times, artists will take random things and make a human face - the shapes of which puzzle together to look like exactly what our brains learned to decode when we were infants.

Our facial expressions our the foundation of our communication to each other.

If you can’t speak the language you point to stuff and make a happy or sad face to the person you are talking to.

Basic biological stuff.

We see faces and forms in everything because when we were in little bodies we had to be able to decode very quickly which large bodies were safe or not.

Back to art, and objects, and meaning.

In mining my own mind in regards to meaning - I think the place I get hung up is the space betweenn information and meaning.

The reason I get hung up there is because that IS the realm of the artist. I take information and arrange it in different ways to create meaning for others.

My frustration in life, in general, is simply that I just linger longer in that space between, and then I play with it. I dance with it. I surf it.

When we use words to describe objects, I like to linger in that space too. Like a switchboard operator.

Let’s try this word. Let’s plug it into this connection here.

For example. It can be said that the difference between “patina” and “corrosion” is not about information, it is about meaning.

Information stated neutrally is like a dictionary definition. Both patina, scale, corrosion, crust, etc, are terms that convey similar information. However, depending onn how they are framed in a sentence, can take on different meaning.

TO TIE IT ALL TOGETHER.

What is intersting to me, is how and when people choose to use certain words over others to describe physical things. Because the rad thing about a physical thing is that is right there/here/now.

We are both observing it.

We are both perceiving it in our own ways.

But rather than connecting with our own deep personal connection, and articulating it, we throw in a conversational shorthand like “I love the patina on this thing,” as if that is the connective tissue that makes a thing interesting.

And maybe it is interesting. But we don’t know yet because we have to go mine that thought…

The next thought on that brain train should be - why do you love the patina on that thing?

Is patina important to you?

Why is patina important to you?

The person might say - patina infers wear, and use over time. This thing is old, this thing has lived a life.

Are those ideas important to you?

Why are those ideas important to you?

Where did those ideas come from?

___

We can continue on that thought and find out where that thought wants to go, what it reveals to ourself about ourself.

But that interesting thing is, you can do this with any object, because the power to do this is already within us.

We do it all the time.

And when we connect with what is within, and articulate that to the group - then we can connect with each other.

The conversation is what gives form to what is important to us.

Objects are always standing by.

Peace, love, cactus.

E

Less Than Full Meaning Objects

Quarter Sheet Pan - In my Kitchen

Extra Ordinary.

I was thinking about that phrase yesterday as I cruised through the In N Out Drive thru.

I wasn’t thinking about their approach to being extra ordinary.

I was actually thinking about the word ExtraTerrestrial - and if we could do the same word play with that term?

Because with the term Extraterrertrial we use the extra like outside/beyond.

An extra terrestrial being is some thing from outside this planet.

But with our compount word “extradordinary” we don’t use it to imply something outside of ordinary. Well, we do. But then we bring it back. We double down on the word - and exhalt a noun/verb?

This is taking longer than I hoped, I will use an example.

If you are good at surfing, it may be said that you are “extraordinary at surfing.”

Or “extradorniary craftsmanship”

Or “extradordinary performance”

Rather than saying, “It was really really really really good x 10 amazing,” we say “extraordinary!”

I mean, I don’t think people use the term often, it’s just more about the term, and how we talk about:

ORDINARY THINGS.

That’s what I want to talk about.

Just ordinary stuff.

Just very regular.

Just very middle of the bell curve normal stuff.

Just the things and stuff that we don’t think twice about.

The stuff that means less.

The less than full meaning objects.

This year I was asked by Ravenhill Studio to share an Everyday Object for their yearly roundup of everyday objects.

HERE.

I love stuff (content) like this, because I love thinkinng about things like this.

Here is what I wrote in the email:

Given the prompt - it's the first thing that popped in my mind. 

"We’re interested in the everyday objects that occupy our daily lives and last for years or even decades because they’re best in class at doing their simple daily tasks." 

And my first thought was "like a quarter sheet pan."

I didn't give it a second thought. 

That is precisely the point, I believe, in a good everyday object - you don't think twice about it.

It’s an extra ordinary thing.

But is it an extraordinary thing?

LET US NOW EXAMINE THESE TWO PHOTOS DEEPER.

Here is the information.

Photo 1 contains, 1 Quarter Sheet Pan purchased at Smart N Final, which is where I get all my kitchen stuff because it’s local. A fancy cutting board by Fredericks and Mae. Which I didn’t buy. A remnant piece of orange HDPE from a project in 2019. A Hay cutting board that I got at the DWR outlet for $8.

Photo 2 contains, the same quarter sheet pan, A cotton towel from All Roads, a silicone trivet by Molly Baz for crate and barrel, and tile by Fireclay Tile, oh, and take and bake cookie dough cookies from Lazy Acres.

Does all that information add up to something?

Did the objects acquire meaning somehow?

They are the effects of my choices, and we may infer a set of values or means that may encourage a person to select these objects over and above others. But without much more context and information, it’s just 2 photos of stuff - and we know where that stuff came from.

How about the objects themselves?

Are these extraordinary objects?

If we gave an extraordinary object a sign, would it be “Extra+”???

Over, or above, or beyond ordinary = E+

But what about super super super ordinary?

The extraordinary object that is just a magnified ordinariness = O+ = Ordinary+.

There was a great exhibition and book called ‘Super Normal’ that tackled this idea.

However, that project was from the 90s, and really needs an update after the DTC revolution.

Back to the PAN!

The pan, the pan, this is why we began!

Here’s the thing about things - is that they all do mostly the same thing (in each category).

This quarter sheet pan that I use, and cost a few dollars, does EXACTLY the same thing as a cobalt blue sheet pan from Great Jones.

This object above is not extraordinary nor is it extra ordinary, it is ORDINARY + EXTRA!

Which, we will have to denote in our symbology differently.

Perhaps O>E+ ?

The extra is eating the ordinariness of the object?

Because the extra in this case, is only on the surface.

It’s not a super object - it’s not an extraordinary object.

It’s a surface object - an ordinary plus extra.

Most of the time I write a title for my blog post then I just start writing and see what comes out. And more often than not, I go back and change the title.

Today, I’m going to leave it.

Because, I’m not that interested in talking about meaningful objects, or if objects can have meaning. I think I’m much more interested in the things themselves.

I will leave on this note - which is about interpretation.

I saw a video on Instagram where a guy was talking about an old man’s things, and he used the word “patina,” to describe the stuff.

Patina is an interesting word, because in today’s marketing parlance, something that has patina connotes higher value to certain people.

Patina is just a word to describe something that happens on the surface of a thing.

Patina is charming. Crust is not.

Outside the world of pastries, crust is not a well-regarded trait.

What is the difference between a “crusty old pair of leather boots” and “these boots have an amazing patina?”

The words.

The words are different.

The object is the same.

Lastly.

I remember having a meeting with a very famous interior design team at our studio in Long Beach. Very very famous. Like, big missed opportunity on my part, but we really weren’t aligned, so probably for the best.

Anyway, during the course of the meeting they kept referring to different materials having a “living finish,” which was something I needed to clarify with them twice BECAUSE:

When they said “Living Finish,” what they meant was that they wanted the material to be actually UNFINISHED so that the material could wear-in and patina, on it’s own.

So I said, wait, so you want this with “no finish, correct?”

“Yes, we call it a Living Finish.”

That’s Ordinary Extra with Sprinkles on Top.

Do you remember in Fight Club how they make their very expensive soap by rendering fat from the liposuction clinic? The line is, “We were essentially selling rich ladies their own asses back to them.”

A living finish reminds me of that.

I love extra ordinary things.

This has been an episode of Thinking About Things.

Good morning.

Peace, Love, Cactus.

"Sensing a Dwelling" - Papanek is my new St Francis

I am working on my research outline for my curatorial project “LA Chair.”

I applied for a research grant with the Center for Craft to pay for my time to work on this project - but the project will move forward whether it is funded or not.

A large aim of this project with regards to research, is creating a system that is replicable, so that others can use that system in their research.

So anyone can pick a

Geography: Los Angeles

Object: Chair

Timeline: Now

LA, Studio Pottery, 1980-2000

North Carolina, Wood Casegoods, 1940-1960

East Long Beach, Suburban Track Home Builders, 1954

Etc…

3 Elements.

Always be Trining.

What is nice about craft objects is that we can gain a certain amount of qualitative data because they are designed for use.

With art objects, we typically just get to look at them.

In my reading this year, I’ve been interested in writers from the 80s and 90s in Architecture and Design who were trying to articulate this space between late modernism to postmodernism to the digital age…

I didn’t receive any of these reading assignments when I was going through school.

A lot of folks have read Victor Papanek’s work - but I went to art school, I truly never head his name until recently. Architecture and Design school students are more familiar - especially the millenialls and older.

The point is, the stuff I’ve been thinking and writing about have lead me to authors who have articulated the very same things - just in a different time and place, and about different things. Time, Place, Thing.

Chapter 4 in The Green Imperative Natural Design for the Real World is titled '‘Sensing a Dwelling.”

Opening quote, “Think with the whole body.” - Deshimaru

Yes!

One of the the exercises that we’ll be doing for the next LA Chair event is a blindfold sitting event.

Because of this question:

When was the last time you experienced something for the first time with your eyes closed?

Papanek opens chapter 4 with this anecdote:

The other day a friend visited me at my office. While waiting to see me, he picked up a magazine and looked at some pictures and floor plans of a recently completed building in Portland, and then said, ‘What a beautiful building!” I replied, ‘How can you possibly know?”

I love that energy.

It’s very Kip, “Napolean, how could anyone possibly ever know that?”

A few months ago I was asked to write a paid piece for an online publication - which was an honor to be asked.

The piece requested was largely open ended, but needed to be about mid-century modernism, and needed to a critical/think/provocative, etc…

When I got down to the process, I realized that there isn’t really anything I wanted to say except, can we please stop talking about mid-century stuff? And then I wrote a piece on that, and trashed it. Because that’s a waste of pixels.

And then I started drafting something that was junk for publishing, but on the road to a bigger idea.

So nothing got published, but it got me thinking about where I want to go with my writing and curating…

And the bigger idea is also the bigger idea I am interested in with LA Chair…

And so it seems that the work I’ve been doing in my writing, reading, making, thinking, is all coming together.

In the piece I drafted, which I haven’t re-read in 2 months, I was pointing to the fact that I’ve lived in mid-century homes my whole life, but I’ve never lived in ‘Mid-Century Modern” homes my whole life.

I live in a mid-century modern home now.

It’s not a “good one.”

Very few of them are.

And that IS precisely my point.

Most architecture is just built.

Most architecture just IS.

My piece centered on that issue, and the questions of who and when and how do we decide what is “Significant Architecture,” or not.

Papanek’s anecdote above leans into my point, and the importance of LA Chair being a project where we experience chairs - not just look at them.

“Significant Architecture,” is architecture to look at, not live in, it seems.

Papanek proceeds:

“Architects, architectural students and the general public experience buildings that are considered ‘important’ largely through television images, slides projected on to a screen or photographs in a book.”

If we follow this logic, our cultural anthropology would suggest something like:

Architecture becomes important, culturally, when it is no longer architecture.

Objects become powerful when they become images/illustrations of ideas, it seems.

That’s how discourse works. No issue there.

The problem, of course, is when the discourse is driving the work rather than responding to the work.

And the reason that is a problem is because Architecture is for people, not for talking about architecture.

At the LA Chair event in October, one participant said, “I feel like like I sat in more chairs today than my whole life!”

Is that true in the real sense of the statement?

Did this person actually sit in more chairs that day than their whole life?

Of course not.

We merely introduced a discourse about chairs that may have potential recourse as you go on through the course of your day and life .

It may be true, that is the course of life, we’ve sat in hundreds of chairs without giving much awareness or attention to it.

So yes, it might feel as if we are doing something for the first time - but I think that has more to say about how unaware we are with regards to our awareness and feelings about everyday things.

It is the everydayness of architecture and design that I am interested in.

Not transcending the everyday.

Feeling every day.
Feeling every thing.

How does a chair feel?

How does this chair feel?

What are you feeling?

How does that feeling feel?

-E

Gnomon

Gnomon is a cool word.

It is the name for the part of a sundial that casts a shadow.

Etymology Online

The Wikipedia definition points to the greek word as “one that knows or examines.”

In that sense, perhaps, that is a unique feature of the evolution of the human species as well.

Homo-Erectus.

No doubt tools that were invented for extending oneself, came in tandem with a realization of one’s cast shadow.

Shadow is perhaps not as important to 4 legged creatures?

To be aware of one’s shadow, is to be aware of oneself outside of oneself - as a shadow is a physical phenomenon.

And we are a diurnal species. We need sunlight.

Some nocturnal species have a mechanism behind their retina called a Tapetum. I remember this from elementary school because it is a funny word.

The way I heard it described is that “cat’s can amplify star light so they can see it night.”

Which is true enough to make the point that our human eyesight has a way of relating to our own physical shadows in a way that is different from other species.

I love the night shadows cast from a full moon.

I think about how up until modern history, night shadows functioned so much differently than now.

First, the straightforward way to imagine it, is how bright the night sky is in the middle of nowhere - which means, away from “artifical light.” When you’re camping in the desert.

I love my moon shadow.

Second, just think how many shadows there were dancing around walls all the time because of fire light.

Just a blazing light source on the floor, casting massive shadows across rooms.

That sounds really disorienting.

Perhaps the impulse in uplight for interiors is more rooted in the desire to avoid one’s shadow.

Is it agnomonically rooted?

Agnomon — something that blocks the part of a sundial that casts a shadow.

Perhaps, psychologically - we could say that an “Agnomonic tendency” is that which blocks one’s shadow from view.

I’ve never read Carl Jung - I hear he’s into shadow stuff.

I like all the words that spring from the greek root of gnos or gnostikos — which I would transcribe as “self-knowing”

I like this idea - that the gnomon - the part of the vertical element that casts a shadow - is where my mind/brain is.

My head is the gnomon.

Perhaps a series of gnomonic sculptures is in order!

Gnomon and Agnomons.

Gnostics and Agnostics.

I think that is why I’ve never connected with the term agnostic.

Why would I reject my own self-knowing?

EARTHWORKS - De-Installing Nurture/Nature

I have as much fun de-installing a show as I do installing a show.

My work - the actual labor, the physical action of my art practice IS moving things around in real life.

In real space and time and observing and responding to what IS.

Is-ness is very important to me.

Is-m

Is-h

I am the IS within the ISM and the ISH.

The plinths created a little ecosystem of their own.

Earthworks.

This is how the Earth works.

I moved some physical things around so that I could inspire thoughts in my brain and the brains of others.

These blue plinths, placed for 2 months, created the conditions for a little world to grow - in real life - I can see it.

This project as a whole, placed for 2 months, may have also created the conditions for a little world to grow - in real - in a way that I cannot see - as it exists only in the minds of other’s who encountered the work.

This is how the works works.

Tools for Seeing - Non Violent Communication

OBSERVE!! There are few things as important, as religious, as that. - Frederick Buechner, minister

I’ve looked as hard as I can look

but never ever seen a cook;

I saw a person who combined ingredients on which we dined,

A person who turned on the heat

and watched the stove that cooked the meat -

I saw those things but not a cook.

Tell me, when you’re looking,

Is it a cook you see or is it someone

doing things that we call cooking?

Excerpt from song by Ruth Bebermeyer in the book Non Violet Communication.

I’ve been working on my “critical framework” for my LA Chair project.

One of my central theses is: When we talk about chairs we tend to talk about chairs from what we are seeing.

And chairs, unlike objects that are not chairs, are crafted for use.

So why do we talk about chairs as if we cannot use them?

Why do we talk about chairs - rather than just articulating what we are feeling?

One time in grad school, I had a critique from a wellknown craftsperson.

He didn’t work in furniture, but he was frequent guest lecturer/critic at craft schools and programs.

The first thing he said about my chair was:

“Well, you’re democratizing art.”

I remember being so confused at his response.

Like, dude, what?

This critique has stayed with me for 12 years.

It’s like hangnail.

He continued, there was more to the conversation…but what occurred to me then, and resonates now, is that we spend a lot of time talking about, or around objects, and very little time talking about the object itself.

What are we seeing?

What are we looking at? Visually.

Phenomenologically.

What are we feeling?

Does that feeling have a name?

We move very quickly from observing to evaluating.

Later in that same critique, I had another professor comment, “Well, Eric is very good at promoting his work on Instagram.”

Again, nothing to do with the chair in front of them.

Nothing to do with the how the chair feels.

I submit, that if we can get better at observing.

If we can get better and articulating what we are observing.

Then this will lead to more robust discourse in the world of things and objects.

Observing and articulating.

The book Non Violent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg PhD is a great resource for learning to separate Observations and Evaluations.

So let’s take the phrase - “You are democratizing art”

In Non-Violent Communication terms this is how that statement would go down:

“Use of the verb to be without indication that the evaluator takes responsibility for the evaluation.”

Meaning, if the critic says ‘you are’ they are operating as if that was my intention rather than speaking from their point of evaluation.

An NVC reframe would be: “When I see this chair, I think about the idea that making furniture is a way of democratizing art.”

Something like that.

That creates space where the critic acknowledges an observation is being made that triggered a thought - and that is was his own thought. Not the chair makers thought.

Another term we often hear/read is -”They are blurring the lines between art and design.”

A NVC reframe is a clunkier way to write, but to me the clarity is important.

In NVC, I’m not even sure that phrase works. I’ll take a stab at it.

“When I see this object, I think about how often people can confuse art and design objects” ???

That doesn’t work. And it’s also not true.

I think that is why I don’t like this phrase. I don’t think people actually experience it - sensorially.

I don’t think people are confused at what is art or design in real life.

Objects are clearer than that.

Why do we write that phrase?

Have you ever encountered an object in real life AND THEN had the thought, “I cannot tell if this is an art object or design object?”

I have not.

Does an artist making chair in an MFA program “democratize art” more than any body else making chairs?

Are all chairs a form of democratizing art?

Are chairs art?

It seems that most of the blurring that happens in the world of things comes from people who talk about things as if they are not things that exist in front of them.

So rather than talking about the physical chair in front of them, they talk about the chair as a metaphor for an idea.

Chairs are chairs.

“Furniture is Furniture” - Donald Judd

I’ll end with this.

What I wanted to hear from the 60 year old man sitting in my chair was how it feels in his body.

How does it feel at your shoulders? The back of the legs? How’s the armrest height?

All I heard were thoughts about chairs - and nothing to do with THIS physical chair.

Thoughts are cool. Thoughts are sometimes interesting too.

I don’t make chairs to think about.

I make chairs for the human body to use.

The rad thing is, you can have any thought about the chair that you want.

Peace, Love, Cactus.

-E

An Artist Who Makes Objects People Call "Design"

I’m not sure if I was ever comfortable calling myself a designer. I’m increasingly less comfortable with it as the years go by. I do work in the design field though.

Design is the field where I have been able to apply my artistic sensibilities in such a way that I can generate an economic return.

Untitled Arrangement, 2013

i started making furniture because I knew how to make things.

There are some things I needed in my home, so I made them.

Some of my friends needed a bed frame, so I made them one.

I made my own bedframe too. I welded up a quick frames out of square tubing.

And then I used 2 plywood sheets, doubled up the edges, routered, sanded.

It’s been the same bedframe for the last 15 years.

I started making furniture because it was a practical application of my skillset that could fit into an economic exchange.

I make things, and share them on the internet, or in real life.

I make things, then showcase, or exhibit them in contexts that are designed to grab and hold your attention.

When the context, the object (a chair), and the right viewer come into alignment, something really magical happens.

Desire.

Desire emerges.

Sometimes it crashes like a wave on shorebreak, you’re jaw drops.

Sometimes it creeps up slowly, like a high tide - all of a sudden you need to move your blanket!

I don’t know how it happens.

I’m continually surprised of my own desires and how they shift and change, from season to season, year to year.

I like things now that I never thought I would like.

I do not like things now, and just a few years ago I thought it was the best thing on planet earth ever.

My thoughts, desires, and feelings change around the objects I use and live with, but the objects don’t change.

This week I’ve been stuck on a passage from Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.

The passage reminded me of a talk I gave before entering graduate school for craft and design.

For me, what emerged in my practice, as I began shifting my output to design objects (furniture) rather than art objects, felt like what this passage is getting at —

“An artist who wishes to exercise the esemblatic power of the imagination must submit himself to what I shall be calling a “gifted state,” one in which he is able to discern the connections inherent in his materials and give the increase, bring the work to life. Like the shoemake at the end of “The Shoemake and the Elves,” the artist who succeeds in this endavor has realized his gift. He has made it real, made it a thing: its spirit embodied in the work.'“

He goes on -

“Once an innner gift has been realized, it mat be passed along, communicated to the audience. And sometimes this embodied gift - the work - can reproduce the gifted state in the audience that receives it.'"

“Sometime, then, if we are awake, if the artist really was gifted, the work will induce a moment of grace, a communion, a period during which we too know the hidden coherence of our being and feel the fullness of our lives.”

So good.

In the talk I gave in 2011, I said something along the same lines - “What I am interested in, is if I can invest a certain amount of energy into a group of objects, and then that energy can be transferred to the audience/user. It seems the most straightforward way to do that is to make furniture, so I’m going up to Portland to do that.”

Context: The MFA program I went to was in Portland, Or.

I made a hard pivot to furniture leading up to grad school, but I had never studied it or design, in general.

I applied to graduate school in Fall 2010.

I shit you not, when I applied to school, I thought Charles and Ray Eames were brothers, rather than Charles and Rae being husband and wife.

Fortunately, I started reading design books and go that sorted out before I arrived.

The first week of school, we were showing slide shows of our work to get acquainted with our cohort.

I showed a bunch of furniture projects, and the portfolio I applied with.

One of the fellow students asked, in a kind of snarky way, “Oh, so you love the Bauhaus?”

I replied, “The band?”

Y’all. I didn’t go to design school for undergrad.

I never studied design in school.

I took one elective undergrad class in product design while I was in my final semester of grad school, and I almost failed the class because I refused to design packaging for my product because it was wasteful. Lol.

As I’ve been updating my website and going back through my output over the years.

The thing I keep realizing is that I do very little design work.

Almost none actually.

I make things that are signified as designed objects; furniture.

I certainly have designated all the ways I want the components to go together - I definitely do the work of design from time to time.

But it is literally from time to time.

And even when I look at what I did in graduate school, and how I spent my time, and all the things I made - I didn’t make a lot of furniture.

Untitled Arrangement 2012

Even when I did make furniture, it was only one component of a larger arrangement.

Untitled Arrangement 2012

Installation at Union PIne, Fall 2012

1000 Cubic Feet of Radness, May 2012

Thinking again about Charles and Rae Eames - and their output - it is always a pleasant reminder to me that furniture design was only a small percent of their output.

When I look at my own output, and the output I am known for - sometimes I feel that dissonance.

The furniture I sell is furniture that I designed a long time ago - the “design” energy that I put into the object doesn’t hum in the same way for me. It doesn’t have to, either.

The gift of the gift is when it is given.

If I’ve done my job right, that energy, the initial design energy, becomes embedded in the object and can still elicit desire, when someone else encounters it.

If I’ve done my job right, then it also doesn’t really matter if I am called an artist, designer, or craftsperson, etc…

Last note, which I find funny - on an Instagram debate about “branding’ in design, I made the case for not thinking of yourself as a brand. A colleague of mine, who teaches design, and has “zoomed” me into his class before, said, “This is such a disingenuous take for being known as the “Dancing Designer.”

It reminds me of they lyric by Josh Tillman who performs under the name Father John Misty

“… So why is it I'm so distraught
That what I'm selling is getting bought?
At some point you just can't control
What people use your fake name for”

New Collab Chair with Sara Bright

I am super stoked on this chair I just completed with artist Sara Bright.

The leather we use for these chairs is what is commonly referred to as “Veg Tan” leather.

I often receive emails like, “what is the vegan leather that you use?”

“Veg Tan” stands for "Vegetable Oil Tanned Leather” - which means the tanning process uses plant based oils rather than gnarly industrial chemicals.

This also leaves the leather in a state where it is like a blank slate.

Veg Tan leather is prepared for people to apply their own dye, color, and finishes.

What I love about these chairs is that each one is truly one of a kind!

Even if Sara painted each leather hide exactly the same, there would be still be so much opportunity for variation.

The standard Rod+Weave Chair is $1350.

The artist collab chairs will be an upcharge of $500 - and that goes straight to the artist.

$1850 for a one of kind chair that will last forever!

Peace, Love, Chairs. Cactus

What actually is an "AI Generated" Scultpure - Process

I saw a video and some photos of this sculpture come across the NY Times instagram feed yesterday.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see the image(s) of the work on it’s own. I only saw the image with the text below:

A curious title! What does it mean?

I think we are already starting from muddy water here.

Let’s fill in with a few more images and text to get a better idea of WHAT ACTUALLY IS going on here!?

Where are we starting from?

What is the process?

What has been made?

Are we talking about what is made or of the process?

OK! Cards on the table on process.

1. An MIT based artist did a residency with corporate sponsorship of tools and resources - Nothing new there, happens all the time. Getting a visual artist to use a new tool, tech, and then making content about/around it, is basically the creative foundation of marketing and advertising work. How do we take a thing we’ve made and communicate it to other people in a way that makes it seem relevant/desirable, etc.

2. The artist primarily used the new text-to-video tool - that’s the AI tech used.

3. The AI tech generated code - that through different interfaces, that code could be used to “make” or print things - using other existing tech. So the human artist starts with a prompt (human energy) and then also connects different medium making tools that already exist to interface with this code.

4. The labor that AI performed was to produce some code based on prompts given by the artist, and then that code could be used to interface with existing technologies.

Therefore, the AI, did very little in the sense of what we would call creative generation, and much more in the labor or code generation.

We don’t know if the software produced hundreds of images, and the artist just picked their favorite - we just have what we have, and the info provided.

Let’s take this marble form to start.
Let’s talk about the actual process.

If a human artist wanted to make this form from start to finish it would take hundreds and hundreds of hours of physically demanding and highly trained labor to simply fabricate this piece. Not even talking about the idea of the form - just the labor to make that form would be almost impossible. So before we even talk about what AI did, perhaps the focus should be on the robotic arm that actually made the thing.

So the actually labor of making a marble sculpture is something that was done, and is done by human labor all over the world.

Human labor that is connected to an economic system that turns mountains into useful products.

AI is not replacing human labor - the 6-axis robotic ar,, is.

AI just “had” an idea, and generated some code.

The AI - text to video software - did the least amount of work here.

Not unlike how ideas work in our brain.

Ideas are free. We have them all the time.

For those of us that can visualize things in our head - that IS text-to-image/video software that you already have in your body.

Your ability to imagine an abstracted human-life form is already within your operating system. It comes pre-loaded to your OS.

Many of you will think of a form right now, just by reading these words.

That is the opener of the article (above).

So many assumptions already out of the gate.

1. ‘Alien-like torso” - why is it an alien like torso? Looks like a human form. If you saw this form in the distance, in silhouette, fully clothed, it would just look like a human form. The fact that we so quickly jump to “alien-like torso” is because artists before have made drawings, sculptures, and movies of aliens that have a torsos like this. That’s art. That’s not nature. That’s text to image technology executed through skilled labor. We have those artifacts - and those artifacts can tell us something about ourselves. Why do alien like torsos just look like human torsos with exaggerated proportions is a better question, I think.

   Further, do those exaggerations say something?

2. Yes - an image has become an object. But that image (or lines of code) did not become an object without a labor partner - someone to channel the image/idea through a medium. In this case, a very powerful machine was used for labor.

Ideas are free.

It seems that how the AI is functioning here, is to actually make that statement fully true.

If ideas are free - generated in our minds all the time - then the work that AI is doing is preparing those ideas to go out into the world and plug-in to other interfaces or mediums to produce results in the physical world.

That was clunky.

The tool of this AI, it seems, is to speed up the pace for communication between interfaces.

So if an idea can become code, and that code can be generated faster, then we can make a new thing, better thing, or just more things faster.

Faster is good for things that need to be faster.

Not all things need to be faster.

Now what?

We have the thing. We made the thing faster than we could have before.

Now what? We have the thing.

It’s here now.

If you or I came across this sculpture in real life, is there any possible way we could know that the idea came from a -text-to-video prompt?

Is there any possible way we could know this process just by looking at the thing?

If we didn’t have a text prompt how would we even start to interpret the work?

Is there any kind of art that didn’t start this way?

It’s called imagination.

AI, in this application is an “Imaginator.”

But someone has to hook up the other tools to the imaginator.

Just like we have to use tools to partner with our imaginations too.

This process isn’t really anything special - we all have the ability to imagine so much - it’s infinite.

That knowledge. It’s functionally infinite. It’s always expanding.

Wisdom is different though.

Wisdom says, ok, so we’ve got the knowledge, now what do we do with it?

We can do anything, so what do we do?

And when we evaluate what we’ve done, let’s look at the physical result of what we’ve done, rather than just the process.

Next post will be about the sculpture itself - and how to read the work itself.

I pulled a Modern Art HIstory book off the shelf to look up some other human-life sculptures.

Who knows, these could’ve been AI generated images too!

Brancusi, 1913

Starting with what is already here

One thing I’ve noticed about me is that I don’t imagine abstract things that don’t exist.

I’ve noticed this in designing products.

Or working within product design.

I don’t think I’ve ever really consciously designed a product.

But I do make things that can be produced, and re-produced, and can fit within a contemporary framework for economic exchange.

I design in the sense that I buy things, and then I turn those things into visibly not those things.

And that transforms the things into a new thing that other people want to buy.

Running a business based on that exchange is the work of creating a system for distributing that exchange at a scale that allows me to one day stop making things for people to buy.

These are things and ideas that I think about.

I don’t ever think about making something that doesn’t exist.

The thoughts just don’t occur to me.

I was born into a body, into a time, space, an architecture - I don’t have access to that space beyond in a language or medium that I can share with anyone else.

There is so much that is already occurring to think about.

No doubt occurring shares the latin roots that formed our words for current - like a river.

I am in the river.

I am with the river.

I am occurring with the river.

The thoughts that do occur to me are in response to the current I am in.

Currently.

I am reacting or responding to some sort of feeling or sensation that I am having.

I am sensing the world, feeling it - we all are - and I’m trying to give language to the way I generate my switchboard of outputs, by identifying my filter of inputs as well.

I don’t draw drawings. On paper, or on the computer.

I don’t mess with “the void” in 2D.

I don’t paint paintings anymore, at least not in the traditional sense.

That was done 15 years ago.

I do combine things that already exist though. Physical things.

This series of thoughts reminded me of the forward to the book on the industrial design firm Industrial Facitlity.

The intro to the book is by Alain De Botton, one of my favorite writers.

Rereading it now, I could do a bunch of posts on this.

But for today, I want to highlight this passage:

“The ability to create a welcoming experience in design for another person is a skill that derives from an unusual source: remembering what it is like to be distressed around an object.”

I often start with what exists because I am interested in transforming what exists into something that works (for me).

Because I often find myself pretty dang distressed around objects too.

My work , my conscious labor, is how I respond to this distress; to these sensitivities.

We all have these sensitivities, we are bon with them - we just have to cultivate our (re)awareness of them - to tune in, as it were.

My output, in some ways, is a direct result of how I am filtering the material world, because my work starts with what exists, already, at the store, the lumber yard, the fabric store, the leather supplier, the leather supplies supplier, the salvage yard, the yard yard.

It is no different than the writing I am doing now.

I inherited this language. These words.

Inputs.

I switch, re-mix, edit, grow, cultivate, transform to outputs that I can jam with.

I am re-arranging what is already here to say what i want to say, in the way the way that I want to say it.

I am arranging myself within the arrangement.

Construction a Rod+Weave Chair. I love working on the floor. It is my preferred method.

A Very Wrong Chair

How to talk about a “bad chair.”

There is so much good design in the world, that I very rarely encounter bad design in new things anymore.

If a thing is new, it’s likely worked out most of the issues that held back previous things from being ‘good'.’

I’m not one to advocate that there is a specific “good design” aesthetic, certainly not in any sort of absolute or objective sense; there’s just no point in speaking from that position anymore, as if one is an authority on design.

I think terms like “good” and “bad” actually become more cumbersome, because they are too general.

Getting into a “good or bad” debate is like the phrase “toss me the scissors!”

There are a handful of people on the planet I would say that to - I trust their ability to toss the scissors in a way that makes them more catchable. Otherwise it’s too risky, someone is going to get hurt. It’s slicey and dicey.

So we have to use our words, our language, to walk the scissors over, as it were.

I submit that starting from appropriateness is a great place to start.

Appropriateness widens our gaze to consider the context and event for which the object finds itself in.

Appropriateness also can focus our gaze - as we become aware of our subjective approach to the objective world around us.

And when we talk about chairs - we need to consider where the chair is seated/placed as well.

A chair is an object that signals rest for the human body.

The bulk of architectural output is the appropriate application of materials towards human rest.

The chairness of the chair signals rest.

We know what chairs are for. We know how to sit in chairs. This isn’t art.

When we see a chair in a public space - all the cues, the site, the chair itself, they signal an opportunity for rest.

And this is where it is helpful to move from good and bad to right and wrong.

Because there is nothing inherently good or bad about any object. It’s an object.

It may have some rich interior life, but we can’t access it, we can’t know - we only have our senses, our tastes, our preferences, our subjective way of feeling the world, and our reactions and responses.

So we can’t evaluate the object itself, but we can evaluate it’s appropriateness, in relationship to the time and place we encounter it.

It is what we subject the object to.

Or as I’ve said in other places, “what’s the chair for there for?”

That’s about appropriateness.

I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to tell if you if I THINK the chair is good or bad.

I can actually just give a report on my FEELINGS. A response to the sensorial qualities.

In many ways, it is no different than finding a good rock for skipping.

In many more ways, it is so different than looking for a good rock for skipping.

In both ways, I am looking for a shape to do what I need it to do.

If I find a rock that is right for skipping, I am not saying that in your hand you will have the same results.

I am saying that in my hand, this rock is the most appropriate for the goals I am looking to achieve.

The same sort of mechanism is at work when I see Ia chair. I can see if it’s going to work or not.

I can see if it’s right for my body.

That’s key.

I can tell you about how I felt in this chair, in my body.

And then you, with the same amount of sensorial resources, can look at me and my body, and look at the chair I am writing about, and you can make an inference for yourself.

I wonder if this chair is right for me too? Will I feel similar - in my body?

Is that what I want from a chair?

When I saw these chairs, my first thought was, '“whoops, those are wrong.“

The longer thought being something closer to: there is no way I am going to sit in that chair and feel good - it’s not right for my body.

I infer it’s not going to work for me/my body based on past experience.

This particular chair is not right for me.

My body feels horrible in this chair. My body actually hurts in this chair.

I could not find a way to sit in this chair that in any way relieved pressure from either my bottom or back.

They were in conflict, the seat and the back.

And for those of you who make chairs, you can see that just by looking at it.

The friend I was with said, “yikes, what’s wrong with those chairs.”

It’s so wrong, that as I surveyed the park, I noticed only 2 other people sitting in the chairs.

Happenstance. For sure.

But the observation is telling as well: they were sitting in the chairs sideways, not using the backrest as a backrest.

They were using chair as a stool. As a raised platform.

No different than a flat rock at 18.5” tall.

It’s not a bad chair.

It’s just wrongly suited for who chairs are for - humans.

It’s a wrong chair.

In this case, I would say very wrong.

A note on hostile architecture.

This could be a case of hostile architecture - that is, designed intentionally to discourage people from sitting for a long time. These same chairs are used in Grand Park in LA, which is where I first encountered them. When I saw these green chairs in the park in Palm Springs, I made the connection.

I posted the Grand Park chairs on IG in 2019 saying, “When you can just look at a chair and know it’s wrong, how does stuff like this get made?”

A few commenters mentioned - “hostile architecture” - and that the silhouettes were there to discourage long term lingering. And then they tagged the architecture firm that designed the chairs - and all of it seemed a lot more plausible.

Which begs the question - if the chair is designed to discourage long term sitting, then the design is actually a success, right? In the sense that it fulfills the assignment for the developers who hired the firm.

Hostile architecture sucks for humans because it is intentionally designed to suck for humans.

I understand this to a certain extent, in the projects i’ve done for coffee shops and bars. That is where a lot of my furniture work goes. And we’ve had very frank discussions about how long a chair needs to be comfortable for in order to both serve the needs of the customer, and to maintain a level of turnover within the space.

A bar owner told me once to make the seat back MORE uncomfortable.

I don’t like designing this way, but I understand how design needs to work within the larger context of the business it is serving. Design arose as a discipline to serve the business needs, not utility, per say.

Or that is, the utility of the chair/stool is in service of the business goals of the cafe, bar, or park plaza.

On a podcast the other day, I heard a guest say “there’s so much bad design in the world.”

I always think this is a weird statement - um, thanks for your opinion?

WHY is there so much “bad design” in the world?

My friends, BECAUSE IT IS DESIGNED THAT WAY.

It was designed that way by award winning architects and designers.

I submit that this chair is intentionally designed to be uncomfortable to the human body.

It’s function is largely symbolic, and reads more as decor and ornamentation for the public space.

They are accessorial to the overall goals of the space - they are like chunky fuscia eearingg, or stilleto heels.

They grab attention, look good in photos, but you cannot wait to take them off.

So if you see chairs like this in a public space, I suggest bringing a blanket, taking your shoes off, and finding some rest on the ground.

It’s free, it’s already there.

Your body will thank you.

Peace, Love, Cactus

-E

Substacks are Migrating

I started publishing some bloggy blog writing on Substack.

I will be migrating those posts over here.

But in the meantime, you can go read those, if you’re interested!

https://thephysicalsurvey.substack.com/

-E

Get That Shot - Event and Narrative

Earlier this year I began an art project at the San Gabriel River.

Earlier this year, I, Eric Trine, who can’t help but turn everything into an art project, went on a walk - and this is why - to see how much weird stuff floated down the river after the rain.

Following your curiosity has more to do with timing, than anything else.

One needs to grant, give, or allow time for following one’s curiosity - the white rabbit, as it were.

Following is just saying yes forever.

Following better, brings your awareness to all the millions of yes’s you say all the time.

Following better brings your awareness to the “no’s” as well.

Like Sister Corita Says in Rule #5 - To be disciplined tis to follow in a good way, to be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

Artists do this by establishing a work space/place - studio. The studio is the discipline. It is architecture.

It is a “good way” to have a studio space/place.

The placeness of the studio kicks our brains into gear - now is the time to make stuff because you are in the place to make stuff.

This is a long pre-amble to say, that the river project flipped my practice - centering the place as myself, my body. So that I was the walking studio. I was the space in the place. When am I not?

I always have my phone with me to take photos and videos of everything, all the time.

But this morning I’ve been going through all my photos that I shot on my “real camera.”

Everything is different when shooting with my real camera. It’s a Canon 7D, digital SLR. It’s not fancy at all. It’s weighty, with just an EF lens 17-55mm. I shoot everything on this. All the photos on this site, etc…I’ve had it for 15 years. I know the crop and zoom - and how much I can get in the frame with or without moving my body.

For this project, I picked up a zoom lens 75mm-300mm. And after shooting the same way for years, the long lens became a way of getting curious with a tool I know so well.

Cropping.

I know the crop of my iphone 12mini (my daily carry).

I know the crop of my Canon7D with 17-55mm lens.

I did not know the crop of the 75-300mm lens and all of sudden play-full-ness rushed back into the view finder!

The lens extended my vision but also extended my crop.

I could see further in the distance with greater detail - but that detail cannot be transmitted beyond the camera’s sensor.

The sensor has capacity.

So regardless of the content that the lens brings into focus, the sensor cannot sense more visual data than it can operationally process.

The sensor has capacity.

Other than that, you are free to crop however you would like.

Only a certain amount of visual information is going to get through.

What does my crop say?

I went on a walk down by the river.

I am the capacity. I am the walking sensor.

I am the manager of the crop.

This is the image that prompted this morning’s reflection.

I chuckled to myself as I went through all the photos. This is funny. I clearly wanted to get a shot of the birds in the foreground and dog in the back, lining it all up. But in the moment I had no idea how to get that shot on the lens I was shooting.

I wanted “that crop” - but couldn’t get the other stuff in focus in time.

I wanted to capture the event in an image.

I wanted to get an art moment.

And, and, and…

I did.

If you look at the image, what is in focus?

In the earnestness to capture the moment, the event, a snap shot in time - the only thing that is in focus is the little bit of rippled water in the middle of the crop.

The figures are blurred in movement, even though it isn’t a motion blur, it’s the gesture of their forms, which we know.

The dog isn’t hunting - it’s curiusly exploring.

The Stilt Walkers aren’t running away as if they are about to be eaten.

They look like they just poured out of Sunday brunch and are headed to the subway stop.

There is so much information here - in the event!

Or maybe!

It’s just a bad photo.

Peace, Love, Cactus.

Think Make Think (and write)

I came across this image on Tumblr, maybe around 2010?

I love it.

It is like a mantra.

In 2011 I moved up to Portland, OR, beginning a Master’s program in Applied Craft and Design, and as fate would have it, the author of this image became my second semester mentor.

Here’s the origin story of the image, pulled from the Portland State Graphic Design 2009

Tumblr;/psugd290.tumblr.com/post/68825658934/think-make-think-by-clifton-burt-2009

“…inspired by a haiku graphic designer John Maeda “quietly posted on his blog…Over the next few months, that haiku often found its way to the forefront of my mind. When our studio acquired the remnants of a discarded arrow sign, it was clear to me that think-make-think was a perfect fit, both in form and function.

I have fond memories of my wife, Kate, Will Bryant and I digging through a Mississippi junk store in an old railroad warehouse on the rumor that there were arrow-sign letters in there… somewhere, if we could find them.” —Clifton Burt

15 years ago, a few like minded artists made an image in their studio in Mississippi, it went out on the internet and pinged me. That’s normal. We come across things all the time that we save and screenshot.

What I find more amazing still, is that Clifton became a formal mentor of mine through my MFA program, and was also on my thesis committee.

His wife, Kate, became an art big sister friendtor person, as well.

And the final piece of the puzzle, is that Will Bryant and I did a serious collaboration that was a key unlock for both of us in grad school.

Wait, let me back up.

Will Bryant also moved to Portland the same year as I did - for a different grad program.

We both were working through our stuff, in our own disciplines, but we both struggled to find traction within the programs. Part of this is regular grad school stuff.

Part of it was the emergence of our digital presences outside of academia - and outside of our physical work.

Perhaps around our physical work?

What is the prepositional relationship of the digital image of the work, to the work itself?

It was the digital documentation and distribution of the work that was making the rounds, over and above/around the physical stuff we were making.

For one critique, I just showed images of how many times my images were reposted on Tumblr. I’m not exactly sure what I was getting at. Perhaps, that this image becomes it’s own object that moves through digital spaces - it has a life of it’s own? I like that. Something like that.

The digital image/object.

Will, also, had a famous critique session, where he hired an improv actor to play him in the critique. He briefed the actor for about 30 minutes prior, the work was already hung up on the wall, and the actor went in and acted as Will.

Art school. Gotta love it.

I see this as a twin impulse.

I was removing myself from the equation, so was Will.

The question may have been at the time - Does authorship exist even if the author is not present or known?

Before our final semester of grad school, Will and I did a collaboration that, for me, was transformational.

We made a bunch of fun objects together - maybe about 50. (I will talk about this project more thoroughly at another time).

And those pieces are out there in the world, some of them in our own homes, in our kids’ rooms.

I’ve seen these objects pop up on Instagram, and when I visit the homes of my friends.

But the digital distribution of images of our work has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

This reminds me of one of my other favorite mantras from Charles Eames - that is, “Eventually everything connects, it is the quality of the connections that is the key to quality…”

So much of my work goes out into the world via internet - and I’m so happy that it can connect with folks over time and space.

That I can, essentially, pull a record album off the shelf, and play something for you.

That’s a good segway. (wow, I can’t use that word without thinking about segway scooters. Now you can’t either.)

A final word on blogging for today.

I think about it like I’m DJing. There is so much good stuff out there to listen to.

Come on in, sit in a comfy chair.

Listen to this. Consider this.

Here’s a few extra comments on that. Etc…

You’re gonna like what you like and not like what you do not like.

Thank you for being here and now.

Peace, Love, Cactus.

10 New Things - Part 3 - Wall Mounted Table - That's it.

“Wall Mounted Table” - that’s it. That’s all the paper said.

Early into my ideating for this piece I found myself getting stuck in the world of novelty. I was trying to figure out how to make a wall mounted dining table for two, with a nifty hinge system and counterweight.

Stop. Pause.

Who said it needed to be dining table size?

Who said it needed to fold up ?

Who said it needed to fold up in cool way?

I realized that from the start I had already thrown a lot of extra adjectives onto the clue. But all that was written was “wall mounted table”. That’s it.

This happens with me fairly often. It’s not necessarily “overthinking” the problem - it’s that I added a bunch of extra stuff to the problem.

Wall mounted table. That’s it.

Let’s start over.

Questions that helped me reach a solution:

1. What is a table? A table is a surface that resides at a certain height.

2. What size is a table? A table can be any size.

3. What height is a table? A table can be just about any height.

4. Does use inform size and height? Typically.

5. Do I need to decide what it will be used for to start making? That would be helpful.

6. Am I using only materials found in my studio right now? Yes

Cool. Start with the material. Material will inform size, which will inform use, which will come back around to inform final dimensions. Now go make.

I’ve noticed that I achieve the best results when I can strip everything away and just start making. That is where things feel like fun - it feels like play. It feels like art making - which, I mean, I feel like I’m making something that I have overdetermined or predetermined before I even started.

I have a clean starting line.

That’s a great place to start.

I picked up a few sheet metal discs that I had lying around and started figuring out different ways to combine, intersecting planes, etc…

The sizes of the discs very quickly informed the size of the table. I didn’t want to go much bigger, I feared complication with wall mounting.

So I decided it was a small table - like a night stand, or micro side table. You might even call it shelf. But isn’t a shelf just a table used for some things and not others?

Wall mounted (side) table.

Done.