Since 1987 I have been developing craft based design that covers aspects of furniture, tableware, sculpture, typography and illustration. A curiosity for the ordinary and everyday has inevitably led me to question the roles objects play in our lives, and to consider how we interact with them. Looking through a prism of modernist design principles including form and structure, I am exploring the ubiquitous, from the everywhere to the anything, stripping away the layers, searching for the essence.
This work uses the object as a medium to look underneath and in-between notions of meaning, in search of a true nature – a nature of identity, of authenticity and of contradictions. It plays with ideas that contrast and combine and abstract the machined with the hand made, spiritual with the earthly, synthetic with organic, intuitive with the rational, sensory with the rhetorical, mindscape with landscape. It taps into a rich inner world, a personal way of thinking about how we might create, use and travel through the spaces we inhabit.
By observing both nature and built environments, I follow a process of questioning and experimentation, to try and gain an understanding of the things I am observing. This website documents some of this. Most of the projects are uncommissioned, personal explorations that includes work I have completed while studying at various educational institutions, by attending workshops and by trial and error. In this way, most of these projects are not steered by a client’s needs, but by my own inquisition of things that are of interest to me, fed by a desire to learn. Working this way gives me the freedom and time to experiment and accept both the successes and failures that come my way.
Why do I make objects? For me I like exploring observations, putting them into ideas and then seeing them come to life as a form. It is like making nothing into something. It’s from the origin into being. I like the process, the tools, the workshop / studio atmosphere, the materiality, the hand, eye, mind co-ordination. The objects I make these days are often an extension of a long line of thinking, observations and experimentation. Some are abandoned ideas that I want to revisit because I feel more confident in them, I think their value is worth understanding more. The ‘desire to build an idea’ is an innate human urge to problem solve and express creativity. Personally it is more of a mystery, less clear, more arbitrary. I like fresh ideas because they are fueled by an excitement for change, new possibilities, and the intrigue of seeing the result. Ideas need energy, momentum, vision, commitment, and focus to see them through. The rest, the skill in the making process is acquired and accumulated over time by the act of doing, by making mistakes, learning from hindsight and then doing more.
What do I know about making objects? I am constantly learning, modifying and compromising. Design is governed by what the object needs to do. Design is premeditated. There is a lot of research, planning and initial sketching of ideas. It is also intuitive, unexpected things happen. I factor in a degree of flexibility within my design process to allow for risk taking and chance to occur. This means trying out new things, going in new directions, trying not to repeat myself. Nevertheless, no matter how well I plan for an object’s outcome, ultimately it always ends up as being ‘it is what it is’. Sometimes somethings work, other times they don’t.
I like to work in series, which are themed investigations of my ideas. These series have included ‘Stacks, Clusters and Clones’ – tableware, 1989 – 1996; ‘Rock Series’ – furniture and jewellery, 1989 – 1996; ‘Structure Series’ – sculpture, 1996 – 2003; ‘The Nature of Things’ – graphic design, 2009 – 2016; ‘Ordinary Extraordinary’ – illustration, 2016 – . I also like to just make random things. When I start a project I am never quite sure where it will go. Initially the ideas are fluid, they slowly develop over time (years), they operate on different levels (practical to conceptual), and as mentioned, I am prone to revisit and rework my ideas into something else, years later. The process is a continuum. So although my ideas are delineated into neat themes of thinking, in reality, their paths to solidifying into objects are far less linear. Nevertheless, my aim is to at some point be able to see my ideas as defined bodies of work.
I use words and text for different reasons. They help to transform the idea from the abstract into the artefact. Words help give an idea shape, and a shape, an idea. They compliment each other. Words help present the object, like a frame does a picture. I use words to name objects and the names try to capture their character and eventually they become part of their identity. I use text to describe an object’s meaning, to capture it’s nature, to tell it’s story. The text helps to reveal the unseen, define the intangible, and voice the unspoken parts of an object’s life.
I am interested in the emotional connections that are formed between an object and its user, both sensory and psychologically. We connect with objects in ways that go beyond the functions they are designed to perform. ‘Rock me, hold me, touch me’, the object emits telepathically. Its surface texture is hard to resist touching, the way it balances, it’s daring you to gently ‘prod it’, its material composition a trigger for an inquisitive rub, its shape demands, ‘pick me up’. Objects that are shiny with wear are objects that you love, objects that meld into your body are like trusty old friends, objects that have been repaired are objects that you care for, objects that inform you are objects that have taught you things, objects that relax you are objects for fun times, objects that have a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ are objects that you want to hang out with, objects that are confronting are objects that make you ask questions …
‘small shapes, big objects’ is a concept that explores ideas about scale, intimacy, interior landscapes and inner worlds. Most of my work is designed for inside placement, domestic settings, and intimate spaces. These objects allow your mind to roam as you move down corridors, up stairways, through doorways, into voids, around corners… through the spaces where objects live. They are fragments on a mantlepiece, stacks on a shelf, hanging on a wall, hovering in space from a ceiling, found in drawers, clustered on floors, perched on tables, propped in corners. Physically their scale is small, yet they project large in the imagination. They are mindscapes as much as they are interior landscapes. They are objects for quiet reflection, an observed meditation on the architecture of nature, on our built environments and on ourselves – the way we create space and live within the environments that surround us.
Architecture in nature and the structure of objects – structure series, 1996 – 2003, looks at the parallel ways nature and humans build and how the two are connected. It is questioning our built environments that are designed to block out nature, or ignore nature, or compete with nature. It is making the point that we are inseparable from nature. These objects are assemblages of shapes that join and link branches of interlocking limb like beams, braced and cradled by forked supports, forming biological / mechanical / anthropomorphic constructs. Their dual identities are further emphasised by using hand carved and machined construction techniques. They are designed like pieces of furniture with components precisely slotting together into configurations of framework like structures. They could be specimens from an arboretum for hybrid mechanical plant forms or from a scrap-yard for the discarded fragments of a mid-century utopian dream.
You get a heightened awareness of the sensory pull objects can have, when you make things with timber. Timber is a material that has a natural warmth, offering up an array of rich colours, patterns, textures, aromas and sounds, when handled and worked. ‘Stacks, Clusters and Clones’, 1989 – 1996 explores making a series of hand carved wooden bowls, chopsticks, jewellery and mobiles. The timber I used was salvaged from old logging coupes in southern Tasmania. Initially I shaped bowl blanks with a chainsaw in the bush, then kiln dried them, and finally reworked and finished them with hand tools in my workshop. This experience has left me with a deep appreciation and understanding of ‘where wood comes from’ and the responsibility it carries when working with it. Sustainability is an integral part of the process in my practice.
The fetish of shape and objects of seduction, ‘Remembering the riverbed’. Soft organic forms of asymmetry, rich colours, silky smooth surfaces, chipped and faceted textures, patterned contours of open grained wood, fit in the palm of your hand, roll easily between your fingers, absorb the oils from your skin resulting in a hand rubbed patina on their surface that deepens with age. As you handle these objects your mind is either focused or free to wander. They are collections of memories clustered in pools of thought, small geologies of time and place, mindscapes of landscapes of piles of mountain top rock screes, river-beds and beaches of glistening water worn pebbles and sandblast pitted boulders of contradictions of embedded permanence at different stages of being, being washed away to nothing, just like footprints in soft sand.
Working objects, cloning and the one-off – rock series, 1989 – 1996, looks at designing a range of unique, personalised, furniture that is capable of being produced in multiples, by incorporating hand crafted components into a systematic production process. The flexibility in the design, is it’s ability to be modeled to match a client’s needs and tastes. It is outputted in small production runs, requiring basic manufacturing processes, that are easily outsourced if necessary. This is also addressing issues around the validity of an artisan approach to object making in a contemporary world. A world where individuality is highly valued. The objects themselves are a series of small side tables, coffee tables and stools shaped like rocks. Their playful cartoonish shapes take inspiration from both nature and the cartoons I grew up watching as a child, including ‘The Flintstones’ and ‘The Jetson’s’. Ironically, one being about a pre-historic family and the other, about a space-age family. These cartoons were produced in the 1960s by the animation and production company ‘Hanna-Barbera’. I am drawn to their mid-century modern aesthetic, in the shapes, lines, patterning and colours that were used in their design.
Between desire and utility, the life of an object. Working objects, purpose built to perform a function. ‘Talking Sticks’ split from found pieces of wood, often picked from the nature-strip piles of domestic discards left for council rubbish collection days. Shaped with a chisel, a spokeshave plane and a whittling knife into a second life as chopsticks, a civilised mechanism of simplicity, designed to deftly shovel food from ‘hand to mouth’, with an added function of being able to be waved around expressively to punctuate a point in a lively meal time conversation.
Between day and night, everyday, daily patterns of habit become our daily rituals and the objects we use perform roles that move beyond purely functional purposes. They become part of the everyday theatre of our lives. They are like the ever present friend in our stories, partner in crime, riding shot gun in our adventures, playing accomplice to our follies, or they are the trusty work horse in our labours. Objects enhance our imagination, stimulate our minds, add atmosphere to our spaces and colour the experience of living. A chair is there for you, together you share countless hours of watching television, talking and laughing with friends, reading, working, listening to music or just meditating on the vagaries of life. It is just a chair, sitting there inanimate, yet it animates the space it occupies and it animates your mind and body as you sit in it.
Between ubiquity and invisibility, going from everywhere to nowhere. By hiding some things you can discover the harder to see things and uncover the unexpected. Things that live below the surface, meld into the folds, stretch to the corners and hover above and in-between. It’s stripping away the excess to discover the essence. It is about looking at everything, the anything, the original, the unoriginal, the ‘almost’ banal, trying to find a true nature, an authenticity. It is a reductionist process, a simplification process, a process of removing layers to expose an object’s inner core, it’s intrinsic quality. It’s pushing through the white noise, the conformity, the commercialism, the trends, the likes, the fake news … it’s full of contradictions, it’s full of smoke and mirrors.
Between yesterday, today and tomorrow, time and place, space and time, the story of objects. Objects tells us about where we have come from and who we are now and where we might be going in the future. Objects carry our history, they collect our memories, tell our stories, reveal our aspirations, predict our futures, make statements, signify our tastes, set trends, question our values, moderate our thoughts, express our views, provoke desire, cultivate knowledge, archive our ideas, build on our dreams… they are there in the moment, in the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades and generations of our lifetime and beyond. Objects fill in the gaps between space, between moments, between people, between places, and between the experiences of living.