The past few weeks have been busy. I’ve been exhibiting my work locally at two different annual venues.The first was a prestigious sculpture exhibition “DIMENSIONS 2013” held annually here in Ottawa at an arts center. Over a period of three days I had the opportunity to show my new work and meet with visitors to the exhibition. This particular exhibition also allows me to exhibit my newest pieces, get feedback and to generate some critical discourse on the essence of each of my sculptural pieces. I enjoy this as it is motivational for me and reaffirms I am going in the right direction.

The feedback I received was overwhelmingly positive with a lot of kudos on the methods I use to accentuate graphics in wood. As well, since the sculptures are conceptual in nature, many opinions were received on what the individual viewer saw in the piece. The weeks leading up to these events were equally busy with preparation and applying finishing touches to the sculptures.

After DIMENSIONS 2013, the next show was the Ottawa Home & Design Show. I was part of a small group at this three day event. I also had the opportunity to showcase very recent work of mine and to get feedback. As well, I was able to talk to visitors about the sculptural art scene in Ottawa and how the group I am part of represents many sculptors in the area. There was not much time between these two events so I was kind of drained after all this.

At this time, I am in the process of designing some new furniture pieces. This work in intended for a large Interior Design Show in early 2014. I was recently notified that my proposal was accepted and I have been juried in to the Studio North area of the IDS14 show. Studio North features emerging designers in Canada. Without question, I need to make the most of this opportunity. It is the largest Interior Design Show in Canada and held annually in Toronto in late January.

So I attended the NFAL Members Juried Awards last evening and was pleasantly surprised to find out I won 2 awards. NFAL is a large, local arts organization with a long and established past. This was definitely my best Monday night in a while 🙂 As some of you are aware, I also create sculptural work and wood art in addition to my furniture making genre. My entry was a sculptural piece called “Eternal Flame”. The Awards ceremony was professionally done and very well attended. Every so often artists and artisans receive recognition for their work. I guess it was my turn last evening. I was sitting in the crowd and my name was called out for the first award.  While basking in the euphoria of receiving this I heard my name called again…. this time for the second award and accompanying cup.

Wow.. this doesn’t occur very often! Needless to say, I was flush with joy and don’t think I will ever forget this evening 🙂 These Awards are greatly appreciated to motivate and encourage us to move forward. NFAL ( Nepean Fine Arts League) is a great group of artists and the artwork at the exhibition is outstanding! Exhibition runs from May 24- June 26, 2013 at the Atrium Gallery & Centrepointe Theatre  Ottawa, Ont.  Please drop in if you’re in the area.

I tend to use maquettes as part of the design process. These reduced scale renditions of a furniture design help me to better visualize the design in three dimensions. The maquette also allows me to determine if both the proportions and aesthetics of a piece are fine or need to be improved. While toying with the maquette for a hall table base, I came upon a different orientation for the base…simply inverting the maquette provided me a completely different outlook on the design. The base then evolved from a V-shape to an arched look.

Orienting the maquette with the legs down eliminated the need for me to create a sub-base for the upper base, a sub-base which was to stabilize the V-shaped base above. This sub-base can be seen at the bottom of the maquette.This was not much of a design dilemma and if done correctly would have enhanced the V-shaped base above.

On the other hand, I now needed to create a structure to firmly hold the table top itself, since the base is arched and the pointed top has minimal latitude with which to securely fasten a table top. The new design of the base now opened up a possibility for me, to create a “wishbone” styled arch. The arched base could be simply an arch but why not create an image of something else while maintaining the arch structure and shape? I looked at a few wishbone details and re-designed the arch to better reflect the shape of a wishbone. In this process I also developed the semi-circular table top support for the table top which melds with the curves in the wishbone and would soon be part of a curved table top. This semi-circular support actually evolved from the original maquette orientation as you can see in the photo above. I also needed to consider the harmony of the table, do all the elements blend together well? I wanted the semi-circular table top support to blend in with the table top so I created it with the same wood species, in this case bloodwood. Bloodwood also nicely contrasts with the maple base.

The cocobolo feet on each of the legs are a small touch I included to bring some of the color down to the bottom of the “wishbone” shaped base and to create balance.The hall table also needed to have a narrow profile so I placed this criteria in my design. I made it narrow but at the same time stable. When I designed this hall table I use predefined measurements for typical hall table designs. I incorporated a curved top into the design with its widest part at the peak of the “wishbone” arch. I hope I have enlightened a few of you of the positive aspects in using a maquette as part of the design process.

I’ve begun work on a pair of contemporary styled console tables. They will serve as either hall tables or console tables depending on the application. These pieces are purely speculative and therefore I have the liberty of pursuing some designs I’ve had in my mind for a while now. The overall dimensions of either of the tables is similar but they differ in style. One of the hall tables incorporates curves in the legs and top whereas the second table has angular features. After some experimentation with sketches, drawings and small models I finalized the designs. I purposely designed these tables to have different styling from each other whereas the aesthetic I am following is similar for the most part. In other words, the hall tables are not very radically different.

I’m combining both metal and wood in these designs which greatly appeals to me. I could easily substitute the metal components with wood if I so choose in subsequent versions of these tables. I thought to see how this combination works as I have had reasonable success combining wood and metal before. The woods I use are also quite different. In the first photo, the tabletop and leg components of the curved table are cherry whereas in the second table the table top and leg components are mahogany. You can also see the curved profile of the cherry tabletop above and the angular profile of the mahogany tabletop to the left. I also use some wenge for detail. I would say I am close to completion at this point and should have everything complete in a matter of days. I also took the liberty to begin finishing the first of these console tables, the cherry version. In the second photo I am scraping the bevelled edges of the mahogany table top. I will post photos of the completed console tables in a few days.

A while ago I had the opportunity to receive a challenging commission. This commission consisted of a fairly large wall art installation. The overall dimensions arrived at were approximately 8 ft wide and 32 inches high. The wall art was intended to be the focal point of a long wall in the living area of a home. The clients wanted something different and interesting, in a modern, contemporary style. Through a few exchanges of sketches and drawings with the clients, we arrived at a contemporary wall art design the client was very happy with.

The initial step after the design process was to create a maquette or small scale model of the art. This is something I enjoy doing as it is fairly straightforward and provides a fairly accurate representation and 3-D view of the art. Otherwise, I am limited to perspective drawings which are great but limited in accurately representing the depth and relationship of components within the art. The initial maquette developed from initial sketches is above and we worked from this to refine the design. It can be seen that there are more tubular components in this maquette than in the next photo. The next photo represents the woods selected as well as some of the components necessary to attach the woods together to create the design. The clients were seeking a fairly unique piece of art for their wall and we decided on unusual woods for the larger components. This choice of wood was ash with intense spalting. The middle wood was bocote which served to contrast well with the very light, spalted ash top and bottom pieces. The dark bocote also brought the dark streaks in the spalted ash together in the art.

The orientation of the pieces and the resulting offset layout form the basis for the modern, contemporary design. Offsetting the outside pieces allowed the components to span a greater width while forming the unique design. The design itself is kind of light and accentuates the negative space of the wall itself. The art is not smothering the wall but instead forms a series of light components joined together very minimally with tubular metal.