I have most certainly always wanted to be an artist. When I went to art school at the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1997, I originally majored in Computer Art, specifically to become a 3D special effects artist for the major motion picture industry. My second year in college, I took an elective class in the Furniture Design department in metal machining. I had enjoyed building with my hands since very young age always tinkering around in my father’s garage so I thought that this class would be a lot of fun for numerous reasons. Little did I know how much I would come to enjoy it, so I took a second elective class for basic woodworking and design where I designed and built my first coffee table. It was over from there. I was hooked on furniture design.
Currently, I am the lead designer for a high end fashion plumbing company called D’Vontz based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. We specialize in furniture bath vanities, natural stone and copper lavatories and high end plumbing fixtures.
Design for me is truly an outlet for creating the crazy ideas that clutter my mind. I love creating visually stunning objects that make people simply say “Wow, I would have never thought of that.”
Furniture, of course, but most specifically, coffee tables. Coffee tables are a fantastic furniture piece because they are always the center of attention in any interior. They are extremely functional, but when designed thoughtfully, are also a beautiful sculpture that can rival any piece of art that may be hanging on a wall. They become a conversation piece and can really set the tone for any room. Few furniture items can claim the same talent.
My favorite design of all time is Le Corbusier’s Chaise Lounge (LC-4). Though that may sound cliché, the amount of thought and design he put into that lounge is the stuff of legend. He researched the human ergonomic to such detail that he made that chaise, to this day, one of the most comfortable, but simple chairs of all time.
The first thing I designed for a corporation was a nested, bent wood magazine rack back in the late 1990’s. It was produced and sold through their furniture showroom in Dallas, Texas. I designed a number of other objects for them after that, but sadly, the company no longer exists today.
My favorite material is by far, metal. Not for the purpose of making entire pieces out of it, but for details within a larger piece. When machined properly and with the right finish applications, metal can set a piece of furniture off visually unlike any other material can. As far as technology goes, CNC machining is amazing to me. As detail oriented as I am, having the ability to produce parts and pieces to such accuracy and so repetitively is really a marvel of the modern age.
It’s hard for me to say I focus on one over another. Every detail is incredibly important to the final experience of the design. After all, Charles Eames said it best, “The details are not the details. They make the Product.”
When I am designing a piece that I feel is really coming together well I get overwhelmed with excitement which in turn begets a rabid intensity to achieve the final result. I can’t wait to see the finished idea, because it never really turns out exactly the way I had it envisioned in the first place.
Once a final idea is in place and the design has taken shape, the feeling of accomplishment for me is unmatched. I can get a little overly excited I think.
Continuity of line and form are definitely the first thing I look at. If these things are broken or don’t exist, a design doesn’t have a solid presence to me. Sloppy craftsmanship and quality are also a major deterrent. Why take the time to create something if you don’t want it presented physically to the same greatness of the idea?
I really don’t take designing as seriously as a lot of people do. There is a time and place for these aspects, but each project has its own requirements. For my own personal work, I just design to make something that is great. If there are ways within the process of creation that are socially and environmentally conscious that can take place, I will always utilize them. In my experience, those concepts have, 99% of the time, only made an idea even better.
I have never had an exhibition of a body of work for myself. I’ve won awards and had my professional work exhibited in a multitude of industry shows, but never for just personal work. I am in talks with “Rising” gallery in Dallas, Texas to showcase some works, but nothing on a grand scale as of now. I would very much like to have a full body of work exhibited in the future though. All of the designing I have done to date has been for professional entities and clientele.
Honestly, I know this may sound primitive, but I just draw a line and that line turns to another and then another until something is created. I try not to get too in depth with inspiration and ideologies. Most of the time something as simple as the way a dried leaf on the ground is sitting at a particular moment can be my sole inspiration. I’ll look at it and say “Wow, that would make a great table base”.
I’ve always thought of my style as a blend of extreme modernism with traditional grace and form. I love modern design, but for me it has always lacked elegance with lines that say, the Nouveau or Rococo periods had. I like to find ways to blend the two.
I have worked with companies on multiple levels. I have worked on commission, on salary, on a consultant level and a number of different others. Everything is dictated simply by the situation and needs of the individual company.
Do what you love, first and always, but always remember that there are a thousand different avenues to do it. Don’t disregard an opportunity without seeing if there is a way to bring what you love into it. This is what will gain you the experience you will need to make your life as a designer whole later. Life is a long time to design for. Odds are, it’s going to take a lot longer than you think to find your true success.
One of the great positives for me of being a designer is getting to be a dreamer. In that, you get to look at life a bit differently than a lot of people in the world. You get to see things that most people probably disregard and you get to make people happy with what you create. On the converse side, being a designer can very often be extremely frustrating when people don’t see the greatness in what you’re trying to achieve and it can become mind numbing trying to get your point across. It can be very trying and downright humbling at times.
I design utilizing Rhinocerous 3D and the Adobe Creative Suite. Beyond those, every project and design has it’s own set of tools that have to be used. It’s hard to itemize them all.
The total design process for a design is completely relative to the particular design. Sometimes all of the lines and details all just fall into place on the first run. Though this is rare, these usually turn out to be my best work. Other instances call for a lot more manipulation, engineering and plain, bone breaking thought to get where they need to go.
After I graduated from college, I worked with a design/build architect named Chris Norman from Savannah, Georgia, USA who founded his own company Synthesis Design Lab which specializes in custom interiors for mostly private clientele. I partnered with Chris and between the two of us not only designed, but constructed all of our own work. I learned more about design, fabrication, construction and hard work in a shorter period of time than with any project, job or client I’ve ever worked with.
Designing and fabricating furniture. It’s what I fell in love with first and that love for it has never faded even though I may have worked in many different design categories in all of my experiences.
I always keep my mind and my doors open to opportunity. Nothing is finite in this life. I can almost guarantee though that I will never do anything that doesn’t involve design or furniture to some capacity until the end of my days. It has been my gift from God and I plan to use it as best I can.