My design work varies from the poetic to the pragmatic. With self-initiated projects, I tend to design for the domestic sphere, at the scale of the individual, and often without a lot of technology. My academic projects involve greater ethnographic research and participatory methods and tend toward systems-, service-, and strategic-design. The images below represents the "making" aspect of my design practice, often in collaboration with Stephanie M. Tharp and our studio, materious.
Inspired by the words of Henry David Thoreau regarding his simple Walden Pond furnishings and their connection to larger themes of personal and interpersonal relations, these stools stack and are designed to be used in sequence: one for solitude, two for friendship, and three for society. The form is intentionally austere and only natural materials are used.
WALDEN STOOLS
Three stacking sools
Maple wood, beeswax finish, burnt hand-lettering
1995
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau