Signs of the Times (semi-long)

Re: Questions

TomD

""Studio Furniture, "functional art"- Applied to a table are these terms equivalent? Assuming they are, when did studio furniture get invented? Have we always had galleries selling it along with pots, painting and the like? I guess what I am really asking is what is its history?"

I would not say they are the same thing. I think they are basically marketing terms for different things. SF is based on a process like an artist designing and making uniquet pieces from a studio. Functional art is an idea, "look at this thing that is a tool, but made in a way that should allow you to see it as art. Again, newness is probably part of it, and design, as opposed to cultural arts like say Japanese pottery, which are first things, but so fabulous as they are accepted as art.

I don't know when SF was coined, but there have been innovators who did that over time, like Tiffany, or Ruhlman. As it exists today, it has a structure, as though you could follow it as a designated path. I sorta look to the Furniture Society for this stuff, but maybe their mandate is broader. I think SF guys can work in collaberation with other members of the studio, do industrial design, do runs, experiment. It seems to be a format that has picked up from time to time in other fields like pottery.

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Just to ramble off the above:

At the end of the day, there are lots of new ideas, but most people do not want new ideas, particularly not spit at them with each new chair. Boggs is, or was cool that way. He has worked for a long time and more than some, some of his ideas arise from real needs.

Same thing with a Nakashima A lot of his furniture was needed, he filled it out with some pieces that were trite. His tables are great. OK, tables are not improved by having weird profiles. But people love wood, it is deep in our culture. He found a way to add that to the domestic scene, short of a burl clock, and he connected it to a lot of well rooted traditions. I would say there is a functional need for some of his chairs, while they can also be beautiful, and that applies to a few of them other than just the Conoid. The Mira is cool, we need more 3 legged things safer and more usable than a stool. Same thing about Frid'd stool/chair. But it is tough to really get that deep.

I am bad at music, but when I took lessons in guitar, it blew me away how many great rock songs just related a basic scale. Smoke on the Water kind of deal, if I remember. How are you going to do that after it has been done? Some of this stuff is early or you are too late.

Re: Questions

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

I'm not sure that "studio furniture" and "functional art" are necessarily equivalent terms as much as they are descriptors for certain contexts. I have spent a lot of time web searching the nation for galleries that carried "studio furniture". The search found very few results. However, if the term "functional art" was applied, I found quite a few more galleries.

It's funny that, for many years, I have told people that I make studio furniture and almost every time I end up explaining the term. I really don't know who coined the term. Yet, there are many references to the "Studio Furniture Movement". From all the research I have done, I believe that "movement" has come and gone. The spirit of that movement I believe lives on with individuals, such as I, in which we attempt to innovate new ideas.

Galleries depend on marketing in order to attract the largest customer base. In that "studio furniture" is not a widely known term, "functional art" tends to better convey the idea.

Regardless of terminology, it appears that patronage for such work has been declining. I am not fully aware of the trends for other art forms. But I am aware that many art galleries are struggling. But as with real estate, the key is location, location, location.

Re: Signs of the Times (semi-long)

Thomas Skaggs, Foothills of Mount Level

I think in certain areas of the art world, the CV can be critical, especially in the academic sense. Yes, many galleries might pay attention to a CV. But at the end of the day, gallery directors are looking only for artists that meet their curatorial needs.

Good galleries are often besieged with submittals from hopeful artists. The vast majority of submittals are rejected. Oddly enough, some of the work submitted might be quite excellent. However, other factors can be at play. Genre, scale, price point etc. can be limiting factors. For furniture, limiting factors include space consumption, liability, curatorial bias, shipping, to name a few. Galleries that carry artistic furniture are few and far between these days.

Existing galleries are generally set with selected artists and works. If they are doing well, they don't necessarily need to find new artists. That gives them the ability to be picky about what they choose. It is not a bad thing, it's just business. But since artists often pour their souls into their work, rejection can be quite a sting.

In the coming months I will be taking a temporary hiatus from furniture and concentrating on "non-functional" art, primarily sculpture. This adventure will either take me in a new direction, or I will fail miserably. I have no idea, but at this stage of my career, it seems like a now or never endeavor. Wish me luck!