Made in Massachusetts: Studio Furniture in the Bay State
In the 1980s, studio furniture artist Tom Loeser designed a functional wooden armchair assembled from unmatched architectural elements. Loeser fashioned each arm and leg so that none is like another, and enameled each in vibrant colors. Then, inspired by the Shaker tradition of hanging chairs on walls, he made his chair to fold flat and hang as art.
Tom Loeser, Folding chair, 1988, Maple, Baltic birch plywood, stainless steel,
enamel paint. Photo: Alex Hochstrasser.
Loeser’s artful Folding Chair is shown mounted on a gallery wall at Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, in the exhibition Made in Massachusetts. Studio furniture is functional art—original chairs, tables, chests, and other one-of-a-kind handcrafted domestic objects—created by a single maker, but sometimes with a few key assistants or apprentices. Occasionally, like woodworker Loeser who made an edition of 48 Folding Chairs, studio furniture artists produce small series. Even in a series, however, each object is unique, distinguished by a different color combination or details.
The Fuller is one of eleven venues participating in the Commonwealth’s first elaborate collaboration of cultural institutions around this single theme. Indeed, Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture highlights production in the Bay State from the 1600s to the present. With its deep traditions intact, Boston became a high impact, creative center for contemporary studio furniture makers, many artists drawn by opportunities at the North Bennet Street School, New Hamburger Cabinetworks, Cambridge Cooperative Workshops, and the former Program in Artisanry at Boston University.
Jamie Robertson, Music Stand, dyed
pear wood, veneer, acrylic lacquer.
Photo: Dean Powell.
Fuller Craft Museum director Jonathan L. Fairbanks is a renowned furniture historian who has long admired contemporary studio furniture and has propelled its reception. In 1976, as founder and curator of the American Decorative Arts and Sculpture Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, he inaugurated the innovative “Please Be Seated Program.” He commissioned studio artists to make the benches and chairs for use by visitors in museum galleries. The program proved so popular that fine arts museums around the country adopted it as a model.
Several makers Fairbanks commissioned for the MFA are in the current exhibition. Organized by Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Jeffrey Brown, the Fuller showcases a remarkable range among the 39 contemporary works made in Massachusetts by master makers. Contemporary in this context does not refer to any particular style or look, but to the period of making—late 20th to early 21st century.
Writing in the exhibition catalogue on furniture-making in Massachusetts on the historical progression of its forms and styles, Fairbanks observes that “art is a broad and deep river that regularly commingles ideas and styles, old and new, with amazing complexity.” This is especially true of the work of studio furniture makers who, while acknowledging achievements in the past, continually test new boundaries. For example, one of the featured artists, Harold Ionson, found long-lasting inspiration in a 19th-century chest of drawers at the MFA. Its maker, Thomas Seymour, built the demi-lune commode in 1809 for Elizabeth Derby West, the wealthy daughter of a clipper ship captain; Ionson thought it the most handsome example of Federal furniture ever created. Still, he felt that it could be improved upon. Ionson, who died in 2001, spent the last 18 years of his life building nine commodes faithful to Seymour’s original. His unobtrusive improvements include spring latches to hold the drawers closed and cross-banded laminates to prevent warping.
Alphonse Mattia, Bottle Bed, 1994, pigmented mahogany. Gift of Kathy Duffin,
2009. Photo: Alex Hochstrasser.
At first look, Bottle Bed, 1994, by Alphonse Mattia, resembles an old-fashioned spool bed. Yet this bed bears little resemblance to period furniture. Its pigmented mahogany posts are asymmetrical, and the “spools” adorning the headboard and footboard are mismatched, hand-turned bottles of various sizes and shapes. The exhibition catalogue explains that Mattia “seeks to design furniture that exceeds ordinary expectations.” Like the other artists featured in this wide-ranging show, he shares a sense of whimsy, notably with Tommy Simpson’s cotton rag-wrapped rocker entitled My Mummy Made Me Do It, 1981.
Bottle Bed as well as Silas Kopf’s Aquarium, 2011, a chest made to resemble a three-dimensional fish tank, reside in the Fuller’s permanent collection. Kopf, a master of modern marquetry, used an extraordinary variety of woods—cherry, aspen, crotch, granadillo, aromatic cedar, and satinwood—as well as brass, mother-of-pearl, and stone for his unique three-dimensional fish tank. The Fuller acquired this exquisite example of the furniture maker’s art in honor of Fairbanks, to whom a trompe l’oeil letter in the drawer is addressed.
Although studio furniture makers often work with rare woods, they are by no means limited to these and always seem to embrace new materials. Metal, glass, feathers, synthetics, fiber, and jewels have been incorporated in furniture that references the historical, sometimes outright political, conveying approaches witty or serious, personal and sentimental. Blacksmith Roger Chudzik’s birthday gift for his wife is an example of the latter. His forged steel lamp, September Light, 2011 is exactly 61 ½ inches tall, her precise height. In contrast, another metalworker, Eck Follen, works at a psychological remove. She welds steel rods with a patterned patina for her conceptual art piece: Long Lounge, 1995 is a free form, playful sculpture that never was meant to be sat upon. It offers purely visual respite.
Kim Schmahmann, who was born in South Africa, is a politically motivated conceptual artist. Two side tables he made are an unmatched pair. However, placed together, they comprise the contour of a Stradivarius cello. He calls the 1991-92 work Opposite But Not Equal.
Jere Osgood, Desk, 1978, teak, ash. Gift of Herta and Hans Loeser, 2009.
Photo: Alex Hochstrasser.
Jere Osgood, known as the dean of New England studio furniture makers, mentored many of those in the Fuller exhibition. He is represented by a teak and ash desk made in 1978. Although it has been in use for more than a quarter of a century, the design still looks fresh. Its tapered, laminate legs are centered beneath the writing surface to form an organic composition that is classic.
Osgood’s understated desk and Loeser’s folding armchair are vastly different. Taken together, they act as dual icons of Massachusetts’ vibrant studio furniture movement, beautifully distilled in this special exhibition.
Made in Massachusetts: Studio Furniture of the Bay State
On view through February 9, 2014.
Fuller Craft Museum
Brockton, MA
fullercraft.org/current-exhibitions