Before I was a furniture maker, I was a jeweler. When I had ideas, passions, that I felt the need to express, jewelry provided a medium within which I could make pieces that had polemic content, and that still were good jewelry, and did not smack of propaganda poster “art”. It was not all the time, but I was able to carry out political expressions in my work.
As a furniture maker, over the last 25 plus years, a frustration for me has been that furniture did not feel, to me, like a medium in which I could similarly express myself. Jewelry could be relatively quick, and the pieces could be small, and not necessarily expensive. Furniture is not quick, nor are pieces of furniture minor. Collecting a large body of my own work has never been one of my goals.
This economy has certainly changed my expectations, and business practice. I am no longer backed up with commissions six to twelve months. The bad news is that making a living has been more of a struggle. The good news is that I have had time to think, and to develop the beginnings of a new body of work. I realized that, at least for me, it was no longer acceptable not to be able to express my passions in my work, or at least, some of it.
In this country, and in the world today, there is only one issue that ultimately seems to matter, and that is Global Climate Change. I think that this is the most critical issue that humankind has ever faced………or not faced. It has become a political issue, instead of a human issue. The well-being of the human race, and many, many other species, and, in fact, the planet itself, are at stake.
I realized, I decided, that I need to “talk” about this in my work. When I design, I work more from idea. I am not the kind of artist who is always sketching, or who grew up that way. I have always used photography to create images. For me, in craft, in furniture, image comes from idea. So, my search for image about climate change has led me to look at the “canaries in the coal mine.” In looking at where we might see some of the earliest catastrophic effects of climate change, I thought about island nations that are scant feet above sea level. The one for me that first comes to mind is the Maldives, a small island nation southwest of the tip of India. They are already looking for land to move to when their islands go under water, sometime in the coming decades. Their president, Mohamed Nasheed was one of the most vocal delegates to the Copenhagen Conference, trying to lead a charge to convince the world of the need to return our atmospheric carbon level to 350 parts per million (ppm). So, my first piece is going to be a coffee table that will be about the Maldives, and will, in fact, have a top made of coconut palm plywood. Coconut palm is the national tree of the Maldives.
At very least, my Maldives Table will be on exhibit at the PIFS in March.
