Thank You!!!

I just wanted to send a big THANK YOU out to all of my devoted readers. I love hearing from you and appreciate your encouraging comments and enthusiasm. In the process of thinking about how I am going to share my work with all of you, I find I learn more about the project I am attempting to convey. This fact was definitely true for the rope chairs - my final presentation was better in the end for having gone through the blogging process. My summer plans are a bit vague - a little design work here, a little business work there - but I'll try and keep up with the blog as much as I think it will be interesting. I will definitely be back the first of September though with a kick-off-the-new-school-year post!

Thank You.

Pair of Chairs

I am finally done! One year down, only one more to go. My final review went really well. There was a lot of interest which made for a good discussion and plenty of positive feedback. Plus, the chairs were fun to sit on! There were lots of good suggestions on ways to expand the idea. I am hoping to take the project and use it in my final thesis show a year from now so maybe I will develop some of them over the next two semesters.



I wish I had some images to share of people actually sitting in the chairs - the character of the chair is quite different as it basically disappears. But watching the faces of the users is pretty entertaining. I know there were some photos taken during the crit so if I get my hands on them I will be sure and share.

Crit Week

This week every student in the furniture department has their final review. On Tuesday it was the sophomores, Wednesday the juniors, Thursday the seniors, and on Friday the grads.

All of the crits take place in a sort of makeshift gallery space located above the metal shop. Along with the instructor, there are usually one or two guest critics who are there to provide feedback. Although this is not the case in all departments, the students are encouraged to offer comments as well.

As a part of the curriculum, the sophomores learn to use the woodshop machines this semester. For the first project they built small boxes and for the final they built benches.



The juniors are split into two groups and rotate through metals and bent plywood lamination in the course of the year. They are not required to design and build any particular type of furniture; only the process in mandated.




The seniors get to do pretty much anything they want. Over the course of the year they are encouraged to build a body of work along a cohesive theme.



As you know, the grads made chairs!

A sneak peak

I officially present my final project for chair studio next Friday, but I thought I would give everyone a little glimpse of my progress. Capturing the project in photographs continues to be difficult so I have mostly detail shots to share. Once everything is in place I can share a more complete picture.

The single chair has now become a dependent pair. The ropes supporting each seat are channeled through pulleys on the ceiling and then back down into the next chair. They work like a see-saw or scale of sorts.

The ropes are weighed down at the feet to keep them in tension. I found the weights first and had difficulty finding pulleys that would match. In the end, I purchased iron pulleys that had been galvanized, removed the coating through sand-blasting, and then applied a chemical that darkens the iron to a black.

I still need to weave and attach the seat backs and to work on my presentation. I think I am going to go back to some of my earlier models and make them more a finished product in themselves. Also, I want to make a black curtain to place behind the chairs. I think it will be interesting how different they appear against a white background and a black.

For the birds...

The semester is coming to a close. This is the final week of class so all elective classes have their final projects due. Both of my electives were on Monday so I had a quick week. In the morning I presented the final draft of my preliminary thesis research and in the afternoon I presented my final bird house/feeder. The projects were well-received. I can't really send along pictures of my paper and the content is really not all that generally interesting, so to sum it up in two words I will just say it is about physical interaction. As for the bird house/feeder, there was some doubt as to its functionality but either way they would look pretty hanging on the tree.

I had the pieces laser cut from thin cedar boards and then strung them back together with leather cord and silver jewelry crimps. The class was oriented toward wood production and I had originally planned to make eight or so.

But the cypress I was planning on using for some of the houses did not burn evenly and so the edges would require more clean-up work. And time equals money in the world of production so I just kept to the cedar. I have all the supplies though for the cypress version so I might finish them up this summer.


The final retail price for each little thing would be $70. We had a guest reviewer during the crit who was really insightful and articulate. He is a graduate from the industrial design department who worked for twelve years in manufacturing and production and now owns a cute gift store near the school. I am hoping he will be willing to help me develop business plans around some of the projects I have designed these past two semesters.