Finding Inspiration

Glasgow School of Art

I've been thinking for a while about exploring a form and building several of the same type of item in a variety of styles. Thought it might be an interesting way to do some woodwork and study design and push some boundaries. So I've settled on making a series of benches and have been pouring over styles that interest me and thinking about how to re-interpret that into a bench. I'm not really looking to make a reproduction of any particular piece. So I'm looking and sketching and looking and sketching and trying to distill what attracts me to a particular piece.

As I've been looking through these images I find that I always return to the Arts and Crafts movement as something that really attracts me. I've always been attracted to Stickley Mission and Wright's Prairie Style designs, they were probably a foundation for my interest in making furniture. Lately I've been foraying into other branches of the Arts and Crafts movement, like Charles Rohlfs, where A&C meets Gothic/Medieval, and Charles Rennie Macintosh, where A&C crosses over with Art Nouveau. Even the organic flows of Art Nouveau itself have been attracting my eye.

It will be interesting to see what I am able to actually make of this in the shop, or even on the sketch pad. I've got a scanner hooked up so I'm going to share. I guess my next step will be to settle on a style for the first bench and try to soak up some of it's design vocabulary.

Falling Water