Organic vs Industrial
Exhibition TextThe purpose of this project was to combine an organic material with an industrial object in order to demonstrate their ability to coexist. I created this chair from sticks and twigs that I collected because I saw purpose and aesthetic value in each and every one. The chair is meant to represent the industrial aspect of the project and the wood creating it is the organic.
Planning Furniture out of wood (sticks, Twigs Logs). This material is abundant enough to create a full size chair which means that I don't have to do an extremely small chair. I can use a few different techniques to connect the pieces of the chair. Some include wood glue, tying with string, and saddle joints.
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Chair of Sticks
Found Wood and Yarn February/March 2017 |
Inspiration
Fieber, Leonard. "Beaver Chew Furniture." Beaver Chew Furniture. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2017. <https://beaverchewfurniture.com/>.
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This projects involved finding wood sticks that I saw aesthetic value in and using them to create a piece of furniture. I had much inspiration from a Michigan wood worker named Leonard Fieber. He creates contemporary furniture with a rustic style using found wood. He calls this project Beaver Chew Furniture because the wood that he includes in his furniture has been stripped of its bark or otherwise tampered with by local beavers. He produces chairs, desks, tables, benches, and miscellaneous wall decoration pieces. By using the beaver stripped wood, Fieber brings an important aspect of the nature around him, and home decoration and comfort together. Every piece of his is a fully functional piece of furniture that is to intended to be attractive in a home.
Leonard Fieber's process begins with collecting his materials from around his home. As he collects it, he visualizes every piece he takes in a piece. he then takes it home and assembles the wood into the furniture using a few different methods. Fieber uses saddle joints, wooden dowels, and tenons to hold his pieces together. He then adds a finish with an anti-yellowing agent t ensure his pieces are able to withstand the test of time. Most of his woodworking skills were either learned from his father or self taught. I incorporated his works in my piece by producing furniture out of found wood in order to bring nature together with indoor home decoration. By doing this, I bring the organic aspect of the wood together with the industrial aspect of home decoration. |
Process
ReflectionProcess: This stick chair turned out quite well. I devised a general plan for the chair structure, and just started making it. Much of this final product was created with mid-process ideas, especially the designs that fill the empty spaces. It took a while to find sticks that would work in the details because they needed to be small but also quite flexible. After many broken twigs, I was finally able to produce the weaved pattern in the seat. This trial and error with bending the sticks was the most challenging part of this project.
Meaning: The purpose of this piece was to combine an organic material with an industrial object in order to demonstrate their ability to coexist. The chair and wood sufficiently met this purpose, but the idea isn't extremely strong. I could have chosen a more industrial object that more so conflicts with nature for example a wheel to represent a car. CritiqueLeonard Fieber's Beaver chew furniture impacted my piece in a few different ways. First, His work impacted the way that I collected my materials. Every stick I collected had an aesthetic value that I could picture in my piece. As I was collecting the pieces of wood, I knew what I was going to use each piece for before I took it home. Second, I used the nature around my environment in order to turn it into an aesthetic part of my work. Much like my inspiration, I used the natural beauty of Nature in order to create my artwork.
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I began by collecting the necessary materials, sticks, from outside my home and around my neighborhood. I chose sticks that would both be aesthetically pleasing and also have structural integrity. In making the main frame, I found that it was more efficient to find one longer stick that I could cut into pieces rather than trying to search for multiple pieces with approximately the same diameter and length. By doing this, I could insure that the dimensions of each piece would be nearly exact. Once all eight pieces of the main frame were collected and trimmed, I was able to start assembling the chair. I attempted to use saddle joints, but doing this didn't provide the necessary support. I then decided to use some black string to hold the main frame together and keep it sturdy. I used smaller sticks and twigs in order to add some designs and patterns for a more aesthetic appeal. These added design aspects also provided more support for the chair making it more sturdy. I found in starting the design details that connecting the two back parts of the main frame at the top both made the chair more sturdy and also created a good space to do the design details. For the designs, I used semi-flexible sticks in order to create a weave like pattern in the back of the chair and in the seat of the chair.
ACT Connection1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your work.
My inspiration caused me to go out and collect materials that I found beautiful and useful for my piece. In doing this I only took the necessary materials which also happened to be exactly what I pictured the pieces to be. 2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration? Leonard Fieber views the use of found wood as a connection between himself and nature working together to create art. 3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, ect. while you researched your inspiration? Nature is something that must be respected. This doesn't mean it is to be left alone, rather it means it is meant to be worked with but not destroyed or ruined. Through art, nature can be given its well deserved respect. 4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? The main theme of my inspirational research was using Nature in art because I view nature as a very organic subject. 5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? I inferred that Nature is to be used in harmony with our artistic abilities and that is should used and worked with rather than being wasted. |