Knitting, pleating, embroidery, quilting — you would think this was a craft fair. And in a way, the 15th annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair, which was held last week in New York and featured more than 450 exhibitors at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center as well as a slew of design events around the city, was something of a touch fest.
As contemporary and modern design goes, there are periods when austerity prevails. Sharp lines and right angles define products. Texture is viewed as excessive. Machine is god.
And then there are moments when the opposite is true and curves return. Gentility of form is important. And the hand of a human being in the making of a pillow or a chair or a candlestick is a good thing.
And then there is today. And there is high and higher technology — and designers and artisans who did not run from it, but rather dived right in and learned how to harness computers and machines to their creative advantage. The result is an emerging body of products that nimbly straddles the divide between design and craft, mass production and hand work, being modern and being high-touch.
Those were the products that stood out at this year’s ICFF — products that find a way to bring softness and texture (the hallmarks of craft) to the production process.
“People always thought that technology was going to kill the artisan. It’s new food,” says Oak Park-based quiltmaker Weeks Ringle, who along with her husband/quilting partner, Bill Kerr, is FunQuilts. From their basement home-studio, they make contemporary quilts that are modern not only in their patterns but in the way they are produced. The two use a combination of graphic-design software, hand-cutting of the thousands of fabric pieces that make up their patterns, and sewing and quilting machines. They can make an intricate (and durable) quilt in days; it would take a hand-quilter months to do the same work.
Have a look at some of the high-touch highlights from ICFF 2003. Those that don’t involve a complex technical process, involve an inventive mechanical or logistic one.
KNITTE WALLPAPER
By Petra Blaisse for Wolf-Gordon
Sometimes tactility is an illusion. And high-touch is technology’s last laugh. But to Dutch interior and landscape designer Petra Blaisse (who is best known for her collaborations with superstar Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas; she is the softness — the “liquid gold” curtains and sloped gardens — to his steely Modern buildings), illusions work just fine.
The cerebral Blaisse found a way to draw depth and tactility and translucency — or at least the appearance of those things — out of flat vinyl wallpaper. And she found the way in a technical process.
Her new “Touch” collection of wallpaper comprises eight patterns that are based on high-quality digital photographs of a curtain sample she made for one of her architecture projects (a concert hall in Portugal, the Prada store in SoHo, etc.)
Scale is exaggerated, though. And so is the front- or backlighting. The camera zooms in on the weaves or threads of these textiles to capture the illusion of depth and texture.
Knitte, which is shown on our cover, is the camera’s exploration of a fabric sample she made by knitting torn strips of transparent voile cloth.
Although the New York-based Wolf-Gordon focuses on commercial applications for its wallcoverings, Blaisse hopes homeowners will “dare” to try her vinyls. About $15 to $20 a linear yard (at 54 inches wide), through architects and interior designers. Visit www.wolf-gordon.com or call 800-347-0550.
BAYOU CHAISE LONGUE
By Min J. Lee with the Art Center College of Design
“My concept was to bring nature into the home,” says Min J. Lee, a senior at the Pasadena, Calif.-based design school. The Korean-born Lee showed a contemporary take on sitting on the ground Asian style, as well as a solid understanding of the technology that could get her the sinuous shape she was after.
Lee designed Bayou on a computer (using AutoCAD and Adobe Illustrator) and then transmitted her drawings to a computer-driven router. That machine cut the flowing shape of the side panels in one seamless piece of inch-thick maple plywood. The two sides were then connected by solid maple crossbars. The industrial felt cushion detaches so Bayou can be left outdoors.
Lee’s entry was part of a student exhibition; the goal is to connect young designers with manufacturers and design firms. Bayou is not currently in production, but Lee can be reached by e-mail at monnani77@hotmail.com or call 818-631-1843.
PUCCI FOLDING SCREEN
By dform
Some of the most beautiful pieces of techno-craft seen at ICFF were architectural screens and panels from Brooklyn-based industrial designer James Dieter. They’re made from a translucent wood veneer laminate (two paper-thin layers of wood with a thin layer of plastic sandwiched between them for structural integrity).
Dieter designs his patterns on computer and then e-mails his drawings to a laser cutter that delivers precisely cut strips and pieces. But it is Dieter who hand-assembles the pieces and strips according to his design to create a fixed or movable panel, stand-alone screen or even a large light diffuser. He uses no glue or adhesives. Cost is $85 a square foot. Visit www.dformdesign.com or call 718-384-6887.
ILLUMINATI HANGING GLOBE LIGHT
By Kentaro Ishihara for Bozart
The Japanese art of origami inspired a number of designers in textiles, screens, even lighting fixtures at this year’s ICFF. Led by this tradition and influenced by fashion designer Issey Miyake (known for his pleats) and engineer and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller (known for his geodesic domes), Japanese-born Kentaro Ishihara created sculptural lamps made from woven polypropylene that is pleated in a production process. The 25-year-old Brooklyn-based designer traveled to Japan to work with the factory on the technique, which involves an intricate paper mold, steam heat and pressure. Cost: $250. Visit www.bozart.com or call 888-462-8067.
FLIPPER SCREEN
By Material Furniture
Spin those disks, close them up or lock them (via small latch fasteners on the backside) in a 90-degree angle so that they become little tables or shelves — Flipper is all about interacting with your furniture. Christopher Douglas, a 38-year-old graphic designer and drummer in a rock band in Portland, Ore., introduced his first collection of “knock-down/drag-out” furniture (collapsible, assemble-it-yourself furnishings) for urban nomads and other hipsters with a space problem. Douglas was clever with his mechanics. In addition to those latch fasteners, there are “super-powerful magnets on the edge of the disks and inside the rim so they stay in a closed position,” he explains. And most of his furniture assembles by simply slotting the pieces together and locking them in place with hidden fasteners. The 6-foot-long and wide, birch-ply screen costs $1,400; additional panels may be ordered for $500 apiece. Visit www.materialfurniture.com or call 503-231-0617.
GLADYS ACCENT PILLOW
By KleinReid
Brooklyn-based David Reid and James Klein are the latest contemporary ceramists to branch out to other media and apply the idea of texture to soft goods. The duo introduced their first collection of linen pillows that use crewelwork as a raised relief technique. A collective of craftswomen in Macedonia (through the Aid to Artisans program) are doing the embroidery and using KleinReid’s preference for simple, straightforward stitches to create the bold flowers. The blossoms are based on the raised patterns seen in KleinReid’s recent “Flora” collection of porcelain vases and lamps. Pillows come in four patterns and two sizes. Cost: $125 to $130, available in August at Stitch, 1723 N. Damen Ave., 773-782-1570.
AIR CHAIR
By Gaston Marticorena
Not that its inner-tube innards aren’t important — you inflate this portable chair at your local gas station air pump. But the cotton-nylon cover was what New York-based designer Gaston Marticorena labored over. He worked with a fashion designer to find the right indoor-outdoor fabric and to create the right pattern so that the fabric becomes “almost like a corset or bustier,” as Marticorena likes to describe it, that forces the inner tube into the shape of a chair. Once the chair is deflated, the cover can be zipped off and machine washed. Cost: $65. Visit www.gaston-nyc.com or call 917-237-1719.
PASSAGES QUILT
By FunQuilts
In the 19th Century, quiltmakers embroidered likenesses of their loved ones on their quilts. Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, a wife-husband team of quiltmakers who are based in Oak Park and known for their modern designs and ways, are putting a techno-spin on that tradition with a photo-transfer process that allows them to print black-and-white or color photographs onto a quilt. It has been done before, but not with this degree of image crispness (it holds up with laundering). Ringle-Kerr found the advanced technology in both the chemically treated cotton fabric and in the special ink-jet printer. Note their clean, gallery approach to displaying the photographs. Cost: $1,150 to $3,400, depending on size. Visit www.funquilts.com or call 708-445-1817.
DOILY TABLE
By r+d design
“The inspiration was the doily underneath a strawberry tart, which is Sophie’s favorite pastry,” says Michael Ryan, who along with his wife and fellow designer, Sophie Demenge, is the Brooklyn-based r+d design. They showed their technically masterful and tongue-in-cheek Doily table at a special show at the Felissimo Design House, an exhibition space in Midtown Manhattan dedicated to introducing new designs and talent from around the world. Demenge scanned a regular ol’ doily into the computer and converted that into a computer-aided design program. Her design then was transferred to a computer-driven laser-cutter that, over the course of five hours, precisely cuts the intricate pattern out of 1/4-inch stainless-steel plate. The pedestal base is in chrome-plated steel. Cost: $3,200 in a 36-inch-diameter size. Call Felissimo Design House, 800-565-6785 or visit www.r-d-design.com.
LOOP CUBE OTTOMAN
By Anne Kyyro Quinn
“I have to think, it’s my Nordic background coming through — the simple, Nordic influence,” says Finnish textile designer Anne Kyyro Quinn, who lives and works in London. Kyyro Quinn figured out a way to take utilitarian fabrics such as industrial wool felt and use them to sculpt a very tactile, third dimension into textiles. She loops the wool felt, twists it, makes tubes out of it, circles out of it and then appliques or stitches the raised relief patterns onto a background of lush woolen cloth, sailcloth and now linen too. She then fashions her 3D textiles into pillows, lamps, table runners, wall panels, blinds and this cube ottoman. For prices, visit www.annekyyroquinn.com or call 011-44-20-7486-2561.
