Squirrels & Windstorms
This post is a summary of an in-depth podcast found here.
Nature's patterns are only imperfect echoes. Non-square. discontinuous, non-repeating, erratic, curved. This chaos, and I'm using air quotes here, is beautiful to me. And this is how I like to make furniture. No two arms of my chairs are ever curving quite the same. No two tables of mine would ever be twins, and that to me is perfect.
Just like the tree I was talking about earlier that gave me shade on my hike, or the sunset I saw last night, I prefer not to think of my furniture as a thing built to serve me. My dining table, it's been part of my world for so long. It's handmade, it's written with history. It gave us a wonderful moment just last night to gather and rest and to enjoy a meal. It's been the theater for debate, the backdrop for a romance. I'd like to think of my table as having a role in my life, a beautiful partner for my home. Like my plants, my pets, and my stuffed animals get names. Perhaps my table should also have a name, its own gravity, its own personality. It would make me feel way too sad to just set it on the curb to be forgotten. to buy a new one because it gets a little wobbly or trends change.
Economically, this makes sense, but as an artist, as a human being, this makes me feel as sad as seeing a fallen tree. Is this too soft and childlike?
I sure hope so. See, I've chosen furniture as the medium for my art because I'm interested in the way that natural aesthetics and organic shapes might influence the way that I design my interiors and the way I think about my sense of space. In fact, I'm obsessed with this. If I'm successful, maybe my pieces are a little disobedient, maybe they're a little aloof. Maybe they refuse to just serve their expected function and play nice. And yet in some mysterious attraction, I also hope this is what makes you fall in love with them. Their moodiness, their irreverence, their joy. and I hope this is what makes them impossible to part with.
A connection to nature really isn't a bad thing, especially when the world needs us to pay attention so badly. And so interior design becomes this beautiful place to have this conversation and experiment. Just by reintroducing a little bit. of the qualities that nature has to offer us back into our homes. Maybe we're a little less enthusiastic to leave our furniture at the curb. Maybe we're a little bit more enthusiastic to restore instead of remodel, to reuse and renovate, especially when we're working with non-renewable materials.
And maybe I think about how I can protect this world for future generations just a little bit more each day because I'm surrounded by the magic that we're all so attracted to. We've encroached upon nature for our entire existence. What happens when we let it encroach on us? What if we didn't control every aspect of our interior?
What if it had a little chaos?
Maybe we could break some of these rules from time to time, but still save ourselves from the windstorm.
By the way, the squirrel turned out okay and got back to its family this afternoon. Thanks for listening to my journal outside in. Feel free to like, subscribe, and share with anyone you feel might find this worthwhile.
