Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Aesthetic Enhancement Devices On Display!


Bridging the gap between art and design with the launch of the Aesthetic Enhancement Device System next Thursday, here in Portland.
When I moved out of the Buttjoint Studio last July,  I took a look at my work surfaces as I dismantled the werkshop.  I have always loved the look and feel of a really worked surface. Layers of deliberate marks, gouges and spills create an Uberpatina.  It is a caricature of natural distress. Rich.  
So I chopped them up into 1' squares, framed them in mod bamboo, shellaced and waxed them, and boom, they are ready to hang.  Of course, I could make a dead cat look good with that scrumptious shellac and wax.  I freakin' love it.  There have been many occasions where my mouth starts to water as I gaze upon a waxy wood surface.  I have not yet actually taken a bite but I would not write that out as a potential future furniture faux pas on my part.  I almost chomped a WWI rifle stock I saw at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum last week.  My restraint is weakening but my resolve remains unscathed.
They are not art.  They are product. Actually they are a by-product.  They are ironically hectic remains from the fabrication process of all that clean lined, scandinavian inspired furniture. Each mark is explainable and has a reason.  As chaotic as it looks, each blemish is because of something and that justifies it for me.  


I think it would make a great architectural feature.  Sell it by the square foot.  Fake it.  Write a random program for the cnc router and start crankin'  sheets.  Word to your mother.  (ref: The New Old School Design Collective, 2002) 

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