In the fall of of 2021 I started building conceptual furniture as a part of my artistic practice. These works connect with the places for which they were built as much as how they function. For Well Pump Chair I created an oak chair that honored an idiosyncratic water pump at a farm house. The form of the chair was inspired by the curious construction of the pump on a back porch. It is an ode to DIY construction and the ad hoc way of making that is evident in rural spaces.
F 51 (after Gropius) is a site-specific chair using only salvaged materials made for a group show at the Huntington Museum of Art. The HMOA is the only art museum that famed educator and architect Walter Gropius designed and creating one of Gropius’ furniture designs for his art museum was my way of celebrating our local art museum. The chair is made completely from materials that I salvaged from a dumpster at Marshall University. The materials allude to an institutional aesthetic and the making references aspects of bricolage that are prevalent in Appalachia.