Did I say I hate furniture?

I did, didn't I. But I did give a brief mention to my love of Belter. I realized (as I pondered that I should blog a little more regularly) that I've never fully devoted an entry to the Belter tete-a-tete and why I find it such an amazing furniture form. The time has come.

I discovered this beautiful piece of furniture, lovingly housed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art while goofing off one day in undergrad. I'm not sure what I was researching, but I used to click through the pictures of the American Decorative Arts collection because there was a wedding dress that I thought was absolutely, breathtakingly, extraordinarily beautiful (that I can't find now). I also liked to look through the other decorative arts on the page. (This was a point in my life where I kind of wish someone had said, "Did you know there is a way you can study just these things without all the paintings and sculpture?) In this way, I stumbled across this sinuous form. It was amazing, and so perfectly named. "Tete-a-tete." I imagined my life wherein I would own a home large enough to house this piece of furniture. Couples and friends could sit, completely ensconced in the piece, shut off from the rest of the world, but able to focus solely on one another.

It is quite the Victorian piece of furniture. I want to use the word "delicious" here in imagining a woman in her hoop skirt, laced up bodice, leaning back and exchanging words with her dashing young man in his long coat and sideburns, with a bit of a rakish look in his eye.

To this day, I'm not sure what it is about this piece. But I think it is the form, I love all tete-a-tetes. And in the Rococo revival that was the mid-19th century, the form works well. There are a few additional decorative elements on the top that I could live without, but I actually like the deep blue and gold upholstery. (I doubt it is original.) The Belter piece I had to learn for my survey class just makes me feel repulsed and a little embarrassed by just how much I love the other piece. Which, again, leads to the conclusion that it's the form. If anyone knows of a modern take--like Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe--on the tete-a-tete, please send it my way!

Photo courtesy metmuseum.org

My true feelings about furniture

I've been at "furniture camp" for the last month. Otherwise known as the MESDA Summer Institute at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, NC. I was incredibly excited to come and learn more and see what this would have in store for me. I interned at MESDA as an undergraduate during my Salem College Jan Term, 2005. Going in, I didn't consider that I've never really a) studied colonial American and b) don't really like furniture as a subject of study. These were probably considerations to take before I signed up.

But I did all of my pre-course reading. And I found it interesting. Sure probate inventories and ads for runaway slaves aren't the most scintillating reading, but I managed to get through them and get excited about the course. And I got to look at nice pictures of furniture. And I was okay.

Then I got here. I learned a lot about material culture--lots more than I'd ever learned before. Pulling together inventories, court records, archaeological information, decorative arts, anthropology, and history to create a new course of study was exciting and interesting. So many things to see and look at. Then came my object for study. A blanket chest. From eastern North Carolina. (pictured above) From the turn of the eighteenth century. I was not thrilled.

I tried to examine this piece and why it would be interesting. I couldn't come up with anything. I just wanted a nice coffee mug, plate, punch bowl--anything made of clay!--to study. No such luck. I was going to learn all I could about this chest and it was going to kill me, I was pretty sure. Then I started to ponder how someone could get a degree in decorative arts and not care about furniture at all. My thesis has furniture aspects, and I'm not recoiling at the thought of that. Why don't I find furniture interesting? I can't tell you that, any more than I can tell you why I love ceramics. After 4 long weeks of wondering and fretting, I have one conclusion:

I don't like furniture until the 19th century. And even then it's touch-and-go. I like it to sit on, to lie upon, to eat at, but I don't know that I want to study it forever. Fortunately, there are lots of people who do. I'll look at all the plates and you can take the table and chairs. For now though, I'm just happy to return to the 20th century and studio craft.

Photo courtesy MESDA object photograph files. For amazing information, photographs, and research materials about Southern decorative arts and culture prior to the Civil War, MESDA is one of the best resources you could have. I am very grateful to the people of MESDA and Old Salem for this experience and highly recommend it to those interested in this time period, decorative arts, and material culture.

Wherein I solve Art v. Craft

I can't solve Art v. Craft. I'll be honest. I'll admit defeat. This debate is older than I am and probably will not be resolved in my lifetime. I recently saw a button on Etsy that caused me to throw up my hands with the realization that no matter how much I write, I can't ever solve this debate single-handedly. The button in question features a pregnant woman and the text read "I'm SO crafty, I make people." Cute. But not helping my cause. When "craft" is now creeping into reproduction, I think I've lost all footing for serious study.

And that makes me sad. I want to argue so passionately for craft. For fine craftsmanship. For people who want to knit in their spare time. For those who occasionally dabble in the line between fine art and craft. Decorative arts tries to walk that line. Decorative arts is very easily defined as "the arts concerned with the production of high-quality objects that are both useful and beautiful." (According to my handy Mac dictionary widget.) But let's dig a little deeper in to that. What counts here?

- ceramics: soup tureens, Greek amphoras, Della Robbia tondos

- clothing: dresses, shirts, boots

- sliver: muffineers, vases

- jewelry: brooches, necklaces

- wood: furniture in a variety of forms

There are many other things that count, but I think by now you're getting the idea. So, where do Etsy sellers or this strange object fit in that? Well, Etsy sellers run the gamut from traditionally trained craftspeople to Do-It-Yourself folks who hope to make a small income from their hobby. The object linked to above (a memory jug) is a type of folk art. Both of these are subsets of craft. The best way I can explain this is the very, very simple chart above. I hope this provides some help in the Art v. Craft debate as I'm pretty sure I'll never solve it.

Apologies for the lack of posts in the last few months. Thesis is officially approved and it's now summer break, so hopefully I'll get back to posting more regularly!

Top 4 Designers: Part 2

Furniture:

I thought about this one for a long time. Known for once saying, "I hate furniture," I struggled to choose a designer I could easily call my favorite. While I appreciate furniture for it's functionality--I do love my bed--it's often hard for me to appreciate it from a design standpoint. I waffled between Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Emile Galle, Josef Hoffmann (can you tell I like the early 20th century?) and many others before deciding that Charles and Ray Eames win this one. (They're also featured on Frasier!)

They began designing and producing when decorative arts and industrial design collided and their resulting body of work is eye-catching, Modern, and elegant, yet homey. Unlike Chihuly, I didn't know the Eameses until last year's survey class, where I discovered the Lounge Chair, Wood, designed in the mid-1940s, and was immediately captured. The photo above is the LCW I found in the 20th Century Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The smooth wood, the rounded edges, and the stable four-legged form all speak volumes about design, comfort, and use of new materials. They were able to use modern machining techniques and materials like plywood in the Post-War era to create affordable and comfortable furniture.

I also love the lounge chair and ottoman for it's molded plywood, which they don't try to hide, and the leather upholstery that always makes me feel as though it belongs somewhere between an office and a rec room. Charles and Ray Eames also experimented with molded fiberglass, after working with their friend Eero Saarinen on his womb chair. Charles and Ray, however, were the first to leave the new material exposed and are credited with developing a modern, sleeker aesthetic for their furniture.

Their designs are now available through Herman Miller, should you too fall in love.

Honorable Mention: John Belter and his fabulous tete-a-tete.