Thanks Richard.
For those of you like me who can't make it to this exhibit you might be interested in the Mets video
Elements of Style that presents curators and modern furniture makes discussing Duncan Phyfe and his influence on design and the business of furniture making.
The video (almost 3hrs) is broken into 4 sections with different curators/academics and professional furniture makers discussing their work and the work of Duncan Phyfe and the state of furniture making in North America. The contrast between the comments of the "academics" and the furniture makers is quite interesting.
The first section: Classic Design: Duncan Phyfe and Historical Reproduction was interesting but boring. I did find it interesting that one of the "furniture makers" on the three person panel, Gord Peteran is a professor at my alma mater Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto. The other furniture maker/educator is John Dunnigan, professor of furniture design, Rhode Island School of Design. The discussion of the industrial revolution and it's affect on the style and production of the furniture is in Phyfe's time and the influence of the computer processor on future furniture design is enlightening.
It's a good if not long video which is best w
The second section: Selling the Design: Business Models of American Craftsmen I found the most interesting. It featured furniture-makers Thomas Moser and Bruce Beeken along with a curator. I found Thomas Moser's comments the most entertaining. He drew many parralles to his business and that of Phyfes'.
The Third section: Live Carving and Sketching Demonstrations with Alan Breed to be very interesting. His comments though similar to the carving video that accompanies this exhibition were interesting. The demo with Matthias Pliessnig turning a sketch into a computer- modeled design for his steam-bent furniture to be ok, but a little boring watching as he manipulates his design. He introduces a CAD program called Rhinoceros (Rhino) for use in sketching his bent wood (Gehry like ) creations.
The last section: Tools and Technology from Phyfe to Today with Breed and Pliesning is interesting as Breed discusses his copies of classic furniture and architectural work. Breed was interesting as he describes his approach to the work (reproductions and carvings) he shows. He has done some interesting work and is a pleasure to listen to describing the tools he uses. Matthias Pliessnig's discussion of his process (sanding the inside) was quite interesting and the photo's of his work are beautiful. Both Breed and Pliesning discuss their tools and work spaces which was fascinating. Pliessing discusses 3rd Ward which is like a "Gym" for wood workers where you can go a use equipment that you may not be able to buy and Haystack Fab lab which is a collaboration of Haystack School of craft and MIT to implement CNC and laser cutting.
There's a lot of info in the three hours of video here and it's free.
Tim
