I received a commission to design and fabricate a chair to pay homage to a textile technique for the Tatter Blue Library, a textile library in Brooklyn, New York by Jordana Martin. The library was conceived as a vessel for textile publications, and a resource for textile artists. The commission stipulated that the library be used as a source for the content of the chair. As a designer using furniture and textiles as a medium for narrative; I embraced the opportunity to make a chair that would investigate multiple habitable scales; textiles integrated into furniture and furniture integrated in a specific interior.

Smocking was selected because of it’s 3D potential and its prosaic reputation. Thought of as a decorative practice relegated to aunties; smocking actually originates in the agrarian culture of England and the farmer’s traditional smock or frock.  The construction of these garments used smocking as a performative technique, foremost was to gather up sleeves and frontispiece areas to shape the garment. The smocked placards at the front and back of the garment serve the wearer as padding on chest and shoulders for farm tools. The tubes created by smocking serve as ventilation while working in these garments. The fabric was soaked in linseed oil to make the garment waterproof.

The knowledge of the performative mission of smocking was a leap in the research. A chair that would illustrate smocking techniques was now a chair that would test the functional concepts of smocking.  Smocking would be placed where people would interact regardless of the decorative preconception of smocking, and the areas of smocking would receive the traces of inhabitants via the indents created on the smocked areas.

All images by Jordana Martin

The Melville room was devised to investigate the idea that history can be an immersive material for interiors. Responding to the historic village of Sag Harbor, Long Island, the objects placed in the room were crafted to reflect the place and history of the location without being nostalgic.  

found chairs and artifacts, Mythic paint, 2008, approx. 18” x 18” x 32”

I asked myself, “If Walker Evans was in need of a chair, how would he make one?” The rescued chairs all needed repair of some kind, so I made the repair with another found object, using Walker Evans’ method of gathering found conditions. Through this strategy and reinterpretation, I began to question American consumerism, the need and desire for new design, and new chairs in today’s society.

These Schindler pillows were commissioned to be available for the1st Extended Family project (#1stExtendedFamily). Along with over 40 artists and designers from Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Malawi and across the States. The event took place place in one day over the course of five hours. The site for the Extended Family Holiday Sale was a small spec house designed by RM Schindler in the late 1930’s. The pillows paid homage to the host Schindler House by illustrating six Schindler House Interiors embroidered by hand.

Fabricated with Christina Venson

his summer in the heat of the my obsession with election polls brought about my greatest fear. That a conservative government would interfere with our First Amendment rights as stated: I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, ensuring that there is no prohibition on the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble, or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.  In reaction to this fear I have begun a series of embroidered dresses that illustrate the history of protest. My first dress was a depiction of Martin Luther Kings March on Selma, the next dress I made was depicting Grandi's Salt March. I have recently completed a depiction of the Freedom Riders protest in 1961. I feel that stitching these acts of voice and intention will bring me to a greater understanding of what is at stake in out country today. Democracy is fragile.

embroidered linen on upholstery, 2010
48” x 36” x 32”
Commission for the Ulysses S. Grant Collection, Mississippi State University

The maps on the upholstery illustrate the military movements of General Ulysses S. Grant during the first Mississippi Campaign. Grant’s strategy for traversing the hostile terrain was to use the farms and towns along the way to supply his troops so as not to depend on outside supplies for their movement forward; this enabled him to secure the countryside. The research was provided via the Ulysses S. Grant Library at Mississippi State University. This project was supported and commissioned through an Artist Incentive Grant provided by the College of Architecture, Art, and Design at Mississippi State University, where the furniture resides in the Grant Collection Reading Room.

Photos by Caleb Crawford

The wing chair and rug are a study in the potency and power of emblem and motif in decorative arts. Line drawings were derived from Marie Antoinette’s villa Le Petit Trianon. The chair is upholstered with hand dyed fabric and images of architectural elements are composed throughout the faces of the chair. The rug is made up of a series of the ovals and emblems generated from the same drawings from the chair’s imagery but a negative rendition via laser cut felt.

Spring 2015

Rug fabrication by Alexandra Goldberg

Photography by Stephan Kent Johnson and Caleb Crawford

Drawings by Annie Coggan

embroidered linen on upholstery, 2010, 
30” x 30” x 36"
Commission for the Ulysses S. Grant Collection Mississippi State University

The maps on the upholstery illustrate the military movements of General Ulysses S. Grant during the first Mississippi River campaign. The Vicksburg Campaign was a particularly grueling one that lasted years, but when Grant finally penetrated the city of Vicksburg, it changed the course of the war. The series of attempts to take the city were multi-layered and complex. The stitching on the chair is particularly dense, was very time intensive, and seemingly mirrored the battle itself. The research was gathered at the Ulysses S. Grant Library at Mississippi State University. This project was supported and commissioned through an Artist Incentive Grant provided by the College of Architecture, Art, and Design at Mississippi State University. The furniture resides in the Grant Collection Reading Room at Mississippi State University.

Photos by Caleb Crawford

milled steel structure painted with auto body paint, 2001, sizes variable

Extensive reading about the life of Virginia Woolf preceded the development of this series. I was fascinated by how her relationships with family, friends, and lovers seemed to have no hierarchy. No one loved more than the other, no one worked harder in the relationship; and sometimes there were equal amounts of tension. The piece developed into the form of the loveseat which was used to illustrate the conversation about the potential lack of hierarchy in the built world. The loveseat is designed as an equal or balanced condition by the function specific to the relationship. For example, the Loveseat for Vanessa Bell and Virginia is for two brilliant sisters: the piece has multiple directions depending on who is leading the charge in life at that time.

Furniture photos by Omar Toro

found chairs and artifacts, Mythic paint, 2008, approx. 18” x 18” x 32”

Imagine if Walker Evans and Louise Nevelson fell in love and drove down south to spend a year, they would make chairs like this for their garden party. They would never be compatible in the traditional sense of the word, but they could throw a good bash. The Walker and Louise Chairs were generated from a series of Polaroids where I spliced together two chair halves. Seeing that the reality would be a structural challenge I spliced many real chairs together to realize this optical idea.

The Walker and Louise Chairs exhibited here are a further development of the Walker Evans Chairs as well as a structural test: if all chairs have a parameter of at least 18 inches high and 18” x 18” wide seats and no two are the same, are they interchangeable? A set of collaged Polaroids suggested that they might be compatible and comfortable in a surreal vein, but actually constructing them was a different matter.

The lesson was that they could be put together but they were not structurally sound. The chairs then produced a metaphorical structural condition and a biographical allusion to Evans’ relationships with women. Louise Nevelson arrives in the story as a guide to the method of making the chairs.

Fabrication assistance by Nels Long