Browsing by Subject "Furniture design"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 15
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Building a Universe Construction Series
    (2010) Tennant, Susan; McDaniel, Craig
    In his famous essay “On the Spiritual in Art,” Wassily Kandinsky, described art as a portrayal of spiritual values. He stated “All art builds from the spiritual and intellectual life. While each art form appears to be different externally, their internal properties serve the same inner purpose, of moving and refining the human soul.” [1] This belief in creating a dialogue between life and art that Kandinsky referred to is something I believe as well. The sculptures in this body of work Construction Series, re visualizations of this life-affirming philosophy.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Contemporary Furniture and Future Furniture
    (2012) Khazie, Amina; Cory Daniel Robinson
    As long as I can remember, I have been a designer. As a child I spent my time painting and decorating furniture in our home. My best model was my father who designed, decorated and built our marvelous house in Tehran,Iran. My background knowledge is in Industrial Design, where I have amassed about seven years of work experience in design areas. This paper has two parts: a description and analysis of four of my recent pieces of furniture and my interpretation of contemporary furniture.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Deliberate Dereliction
    (2012-05) Miley, Aaron Joseph; Tennant, Phil
    Furniture makers have a responsibility to influence the way viewers process and interpret their pieces. Using personal memories and life experiences as points of departure, my furniture pieces will attempt to challenge viewer perception and experience, making the viewer question what is truthfully being seen. The key to making objects of this type is understanding that viewers have preconceived notions of what furniture is and what furniture should be and that these views result in a multitude of varying interpretations and reactions. The goal of my body of work is to trigger a visceral reaction within the viewer, which is essentially a triggered memory. The content of the triggered or activated memory is irrelevant, and it could be anything from pleasure and fondness to contempt and shock; the important thing is that an emotional response is elicited. These pieces are meant to directly challenge the viewer’s constructed ideas of furniture by the use of iconic forms juxtaposed against intentionally derelict elements. The iconic forms allude to one object that is wholly representational of a particular group - the essence of a particular form in furniture that one may recognize as a chair, table, console, cabinet, etc. The juxtaposition of these familiar forms and unfamiliar elements creates the perfect environment to elicit a visceral reaction from the viewer.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Direct Radical intuition: DE-centering the black box within MA 'space-time interval'
    (2013-05) Ellis, Charles Stephen; Robinson, Cory
    DIRECT Rad·i·cal in·tu·i·tion: DE-centering the black box within MA ‘space-time interval’ The process in the creation of my work in ‘studio furniture’ and the underlying research has its INTENTIONS in the elaboration of how ideas as ‘Direct Radical Intuition’ steeped in an Eastern perspective can be manifested into the ‘presence of making’. EXPLORATIONS into the physical making of the works will be revealed as ASSOCIATIONS in personal narratives describing how and why the process unfolds in Japanese Zen and Western Post Modern philosophical contexts. CONNECTIONS will be made through the forms of wedges and shims in the works to underpin how the Japanese concept of MA; ‘space- time interval’ and Post Modernist concept of de-centering is ‘working in the works.’ ‘Direct Radical Intuition’ allows the designer/ artist to look within and beyond self and culturally imposed boundaries. This insight leads toward an effortlessness embodied in a Zen saying of ichi-go ichi-e; ‘one time, one meeting.’ IMPLICATIONS thus can be made into the ‘presence of making’ that informs ‘a way of seeing’ into the vast creative human potentials. Charles S. Ellis_ 05.22.2013
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Engaging Disadvantaged Youth in the Creative Process
    (2014) Ehrsam, Bradley; Robinson, Cory
    Public Practice is vital for personal and cultural development and it connects individuals to the larger world. Art enables creative exploration, helps build confidence, and enables children in disadvantaged schools to take part in a positive creative process that subsequently affects their school, community, and ability to take control of their future. As more research is conducted in this field, researchers are finding that art levels the "learning field" across socio-economic boundaries, improves student retention and reduces the achievement gap.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Form of Play
    (2014) Tommer, Nathan; Tennant, Phil
    I describe the work that I have made for my MFA thesis show as sculptural, Modernist inspired furniture, with forms based on or derived from those of classic mass manufactured children’s toys. It is a body of work which was initially conceived as a reaction to what I felt were the latent formal associations between certain types of children’s toys and prototypical Modernist furniture designs. The idea that there may be a relationship between toys and Modernism first occurred to me in the early part of 2010, while obtaining my bachelor of science in industrial design. Later that year I solidified my intention to create a body of artwork which would explore both the validity of that perceived connection and its aesthetic potential. This paper and the thesis exhibition which it is written to document and accompany are the tangible results of that intention.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Illuminated Structures
    (2012-05) Edwards, Vincent; Robinson, Cory
    My thesis work consists of sculptural wooden furniture, which is built using a ‘skin on frame’ technique. One piece uses wooden slats as the ‘skin’ while the other pieces utilize a Dacron fabric skin stretched over a wooden framework. The goal of the work is to operate as aesthetically driven sculpture while retaining a deeply functional furniture element. By creating functional work that the viewer can use, I hope to provide a more intimate experience wherein the viewer’s body interacts directly with the work, resulting in a deeper connection between the viewer and the artwork.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Legacy of the Individual
    (2014) Tury, Colin; Robinson, Cory
    What does it mean to be the Maker? In today’s society, with CNC technology and the ability to create objects without having to physically interact with the medium at hand, why would anyone expel energy doing things “traditionally”? One merely needs to know how to navigate a digital checklist to operate such advanced technology. The internet makes learning this technology even easier. With the help of online tutorials and forums, anyone can get a crash course in such powerful technology. I am not opposed to such technology, for I see it as just a tool that can enable one to work more efficiently if needed, but that is not the question. In a discipline full of artists, craftsmen, fabricators, designers, design-builders, and so on, how does one coexist without being lost in the sea of titles? And more importantly, why do we attempt to define ourselves? I am a maker because it is not about the title, it is about the act.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Modern Groove
    (2014-05) Ladwig, Samuel; Robinson, Cory
    Robert Venturi’s assertion that “Orthodox Modern[ists] have tended to recognize complexity insufficiently or inconsistently” is at the heart of the disconnection between modernist and post-modernist responses to the world around us and represents the primary rift in the modernist continuum (Venturi, 1966). Whether for rhetorical impact or his own dogmatic beliefs, the point that Venturi failed to acknowledge is that often designers do not choose to “eschew ambiguity” because they don’t recognize complexity. Rather some prefer clarity as a natural reaction to complexity, and some fifty years after his “gentle manifesto” the search for order in a chaotic world is still an important creative imperative. The goal of my research is not to argue against the merits of embracing complexity directly. It is to create a personal guidebook for why I choose not to. My work is not a misguided attempt to suggest that life and the world are simple. My tendency to favor the design principle of unity over variety is due to my appreciation for the preciousness of aesthetically quiet moments precisely because the world is complex. I prefer to use formal qualities to create harmony rather than tension in an attempt to create elegant moments as a counterbalance to a sometimes chaotic existence. Throughout this investigation I have also realized that there is an important distinction to be made between the goals and responsibilities of a furniture designer as opposed to other disciplines, and I have found there to be more latitude within furniture to embrace post-modernist ideas than I originally expected. Scale and the use of furniture automatically make it able to have specific conversations with the user and viewer, but similar to my thoughts on architecture, furniture’s lifespan and prominence in an environment make overtly ironic compositions difficult for me to justify when the user must interact with the work daily. With some pieces I have purposefully experimented with the effects that furniture and posture can have on the user, and I have embraced the use of metaphor and semiology to extend the potential of my furniture to communicate visually more effectively. I believe that chronological distance from the hardline orthodoxy that Venturi challenged has given me more freedom to utilize post-modern concepts without feeling the need to use them as an argument for or against modernism, but it is still important to me that complexities and contradictions in my designs are perceived as whispers rather than screams.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    On the Decentered Human Nature as a Facilitator of Dialogue
    (2018-05) Osheroff, Michael; Robinson, Cory
    My thesis work utilizes an improvisational design method wherein each piece of furniture is made through collaboration with and in reaction to a specific fallen branch. Borne from a desire to design in a more embodied way, this work is a reaction against my previous methodology, which was to create form in the vacuum of my headspace and fastidiously lay out each and every step of a piece’s construction, rendering a beautiful but, to me, lifeless piece of furniture. By viewing the process of designing and making furniture through the dual lens of dialogical aesthetics and the post-human philosophy of speculative realism, I have experienced a heightened sense of empathy for my materials and for the branches with which I design. In working this way, the furniture I have made runs counter to my experience in contemporary American carpentry practices and the internet age’s commoditization of materials, processes, and time. Informed by the honesty and reverence for both material and process found in traditional Japanese carpentry, these pieces of furniture– occupied by branches instead of people– address the themes of functional specificity and the continuum of nature’s life cycles. By juxtaposing the rough natural form of a fallen branch with more polished furniture forms wrought by my hands, this body of work speaks to the bridging of relationships that have been allowed to deteriorate with the advent of technology, social media, and the capitalist “bottom line.”