Somewhat like comparing Bach to Bethoven - but in an effort to actually do so, I would say that Krenov is most "in tune" with the process of work. Nakashima was (he died in 1990) most "in tune" with the wood itself. Neither sensitivity, imo, is better than the other. Both are valuable, and each artist has an esteemed place in the world of craft and woodworking.
Rick
Does this mean that all model cars that I built when I was a kid should be thrown away because they can not be driven??
I feel that if an artist, who in this case happens to be a wood worker, creates a piece of art, which happens to look like a piece of furniture, should not be devalued because its does have any functional usefulness for you or is not your style.
For cryin' out loud, you cant sleep with the Venus de Milo.
Grandpa Simpson
Sure. Objects created to be simultaneously artistic and useful can cease to be either under the right circumstances. There is nothing dictating that those aims must be contradictory, but a contradiction is not difficult to achieve. A Laz-E-Boy is a butt-ugly piece of furniture, but it seems to have satisfied its utilitarian specification.
To me, the questions, "Does that look nice?" and "Would I put that in my home?" are not equivalent. Our homes are our most intimate artificial spaces. As such they often reflect great attention and discrimination on the part of their inhabitants.
Even so, homes are not the only built environments we encounter and by which we are affected. What works in a living room may not work in an office. In a mountain cabin you might appreciate a bed made of minimally worked pine logs. That same bed may seem comically out of place in a Manhattan apartment.
Frank Lloyd Wright recognized that furniture was an appendage to the immovable structure of a building. And so for each of his houses or buildings, he designed the furniture that would go into it, so that it would be one single expression of his artistic intent. But have you ever sat on some of his high-backed chairs? They're gawdawfully uncomfortable. Do they look nice? Without question. Would I put that in my home? Not if I respected my guests, I wouldn't.
I haven't yet seen any Krenov pieces that I would appreciate in my home. That doesn't mean I can't think of a setting elsewhere in which even the weird bell-bottomed cabinets would be at home.
Some of the living room benches and other furniture, including built-in bedroom furniture, at Wright's Kentuck Knob is downright uncomfortable to even look at, at least for me. The house makes me feel like crouching because of low door lintels and narrow passageways...Wright was said to be height challanged and slender. I used to be short, but then I turned 12. I used to slender, but then I quit smoking.
Anyway, the concept is brilliant, but like the construction at Falling Water, the implementation leaves a bit to be desired (at FW, they've spent OVER $4 million bucks to restore a house that cost about $100,000 to build, IIRC).
I love the way the two houses look and they way they are set into their respective landscapes, but I'd prefer not to even think seriously of living in them.
Charlie Self
"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." Sir Winston Churchill
What do you think of if you see a piece by Jimmy Carter ? He's a pretty good cabinetmaker.
-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods
Ain't that the damn truth. 12 years at a steady 5lbs a year ain't pretty.
Figure about 14 years. Yuk.
Charlie Self
"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." Sir Winston Churchill
My packin 'em on started with the "quit smoking" routine also. The OverLord put us on an unofficial weight watchers program in mid September after I packed on 5 pounds in 3 weeks while on vacation. Down
18 lbs in 2 months with 14 to go for the target. Portions, man - portions :-) You wouldn't believe the tasty stuff we've been eating. Cutting down to one little relaxing toddy in the evening seems to be a big help also :-(-Doug
James Krenov.
Andy Dingley wrote: mility.
- Nakashima would use pieces with splits and crack - spanning them with a couple of bow ties if they threatened the integrity of the surface. - Krenov doesn't usually leave cracks and splits in his finished pieces
- Nakashima pieces are typically of a single wood and often a single slab. - Krenov pieces are typically of several, complimentry (sp?) woods put together in such a way that they make a pleasing whole which does not hold the eye on any one wood.
- Nakashima seemed to keep the woodworking to the absolue minimum (his chairs being a minor exception) - Krenov uses several basic joining methods - done exception- ally well and often invisible.
- Nakashima was a university grad (architecture I think) who traveled extensively, associated with artist in various countries and spent years in an ashram in India. - Krenovs' travels seemed to have been driven by economics and he doesn't seem to draw on others for inspiration, preferring to do all of the work on each of his pieces, a solitary woodworker (his teaching seems to be the exception).
Nakashima had more wood in one place at one time than Kremov does.
Nakashima visited significant trees all over the world and sketched them, along with lots of other trees. I don't think Krenov has drawn any trees yet. He gets interested once it's been cut and dried.
Nakashima wrote a book - Krenov has done four, possibly five books.
Nakashima used more japanese woodworking tools than Krenov (big surprise right?)
Nakashima understood busines - marketing, promotion etc. while Krenov eventually did well in spite of himself.
I don't think Nakashima was a tennis player.
charlie b
I'm sure I've seen at least one Krenov cabinet with slab doors where one (or both) had a vertical split all the way through - and delicate tiny strips across it to constrain it. However it was still clearly a slab of _timber_ not "wood". The edges were absolutely square, the joinery was perfect. The split was merely a more-developed form of the typical Krenov feature of a colour stripe of highly figured wood.
Nakashima made furniture from trees, Krenov made it from timber, the regularised product of sawmills.
Agreed - bit odd really, how naturalistic his tables were, and how '70s space-station-futurist his chairs were. Although he never really followed any overall design tradition, the chairs were a complete rejection of traditional woodworking approaches and had more in common with architecture and concrete work.
Something I plan to make one day is a Conoid chair for outdoor use - in reinforced concrete.
I've also got the elm seat slab for a wooden Conoid waiting here - manyana.
-- Die Gotterspammerung - Junkmail of the Gods
Commedia del'Arte?
Regards, Tom Thomas J. Watson-Cabinetmaker Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania
Oddly, they seem well proportioned to me. It's all to do with how you look at them. That's one of the things with JK's stuff: it changes as you change your point of view.
But curio cabinets have a function. Not for you and most definitely not for me as I don't own "curios". Others do. Besides, if you get some of his books, you'll find that he goes through phases. He made a lot of other stuff in past periods.
The thing with his creations is that the execution is nothing short of perfection, always almost invisible. But effective. That is hard to do. Very hard. I particularly like his cabinet with the oddly cooppered doors that cannot possibly close or open, yet they do and to perfection.
His current phase is cabinets. Once he's happy that he's explored all his mind tells him to do in that area, he'll move on. If he's still alive. Personally, I don't mind one bit. I've found all his creations a source of ideas and interesting techniques which I try to emulate. Without success, but I learn. That's the whole idea of his, I guess.
Nakashima for example does not do as much for me. His chair is mostly impractical unless you have a huge room. And I suspect it won't "wobble" properly. Although obviously stunning. All his other creations remind me of someone grabbing a lump of wood, polishing one side and calling it finished. Nevertheless, it's still very well executed stuff and I wish I could "polish one side" as well as he does!
Excellent point. There's a great and uncomplicated challenge in designing furniture, and that's precicely it. If I can make something that not only looks great but also works anywhere, I'll have achieved something even FLW couldn't acheive. Good assignment in a class on architecture - Take a Wright environment, scrub the furniture, and replace it with something that satisfies both criteria.
Ah, yes, to be able to "polish one side well". I think we all aspire to this in one form or another but then someone comes along and asks, "when will it be finished?". Alas, my audience would not appreciate the work to do one side only, they only want to know, "How many beers can ya putin there?". :-)
BRuce
No>
Have you seen and touched any of his work? I saw several of his pieces as well as Maloof's work at a museum in San Diego this summer. I was awe struck. I didn't touch, but I could have if I had wanted to. The point is. it was accessible to the point of being able to examine it closely. One piece that I had never seen photo's of was a case that was hung on the wall. The doors and joinery was perfection. His dovetails are perfect in this piece. He did things other than tables and chairs.
I've only seen photo's of Krenov's work. I would like to see them for real.
I also saw some Townsend - Goddard pieces this fall, and also the wood workers at Williamsburg . . . . . . . We were invited to touch and examine their work. One had an inlayed harpsichord under construction, all by hand tools.
He was, and so am I. I don't have any problem navigating Wright interiors. :-)
But seriously he also has some designs that soar. Wright did lots of innovative things with space. Remember that he rebelled against a design tradition that envisioned houses as a collection of isolated square boxes joined by doorways. That rebellion produced an entirely different concept of space in a dwelling by creating a flow from one functional area to another and using things like ceiling height to visually demarcate them.
Innovation isn't always and universally good. By trading the strict compartmentalization of Victorian architecture for his new concept, he just traded one set of known problems for another set of problems that he (and we subsequently) came to characterize and criticize.
| Anyway, the concept is brilliant, but like the construction | at Falling Water, the implementation leaves a bit to be desired
The whole concept of built-in furniture is fraught with peril. And I'm not talking about Murphy beds or bookshelves. The notion of setting in stone (or nailed-down wood) just what the furniture should be and where it should go denies some of the freedom normally enjoyed by the inhabitant. We enjoy our homes partly because we can adapt them to our tastes in ways the original designer perhaps did not envision or intend, and because we can change those adaptations at will.
Mutability appeals to some people. Look at how many people post here saying, "I've got this table that I really like, but I need to change it. How should I go about it?" Maybe Wright built in a seat or a table somewhere with a very good reason in mind, but who is to say the inhabitant recognizes and appreciates that reason? Who's to say the inhabitant hasn't found a better reason for locating that piece across the room?
Now we here tend to congregate at the nascent end of a piece's life cycle. There is a certain sense of "ownership" of a piece, even if we pass physical possession of it to someone else and cash his check. We invest our creative efforts into choosing the wood, executing our design, and carefully finishing the piece. And so part of us wants to scream when the recipient glops on six coats of Minwax High-Gloss Kindergartner Snot. But the other part of us has to admit that if that's what makes the piece visually appealing or functional to its new owner, it's better that way. It means the end user is "correcting" a "deficiency" that we should have seen.
Wright took great care to create an integrated expression of his ideas to a great level of detail. If some fault exists in the design, or in the execution of the design, we would like to have the ability to correct it. Wright didn't leave much flexibility for that. And in so doing requires you either to take him or to leave him. If a designer is going to do that, then he must accept being left.
| (at FW, they've spent OVER $4 million bucks to restore a house | that cost about $100,000 to build, IIRC).
Well, sure. But how much do you think the Mona Lisa costs in terms of the materials and initial labor? Compare that with the efforts now expended to preserve and extend its life. We spend $4 million on Fallingwater because it's the architectural equivalent of a Mona Lisa. Other houses get the wrecking ball when their cantilevers sag.
I can go buy a bookshelf from Sauder made of compressed oatmeal with a picture of wood pasted on it. It may look good in a context where a Krenov would not. It may provide a sturdy, serviceable container where a Krenov might not. Under those circumstances, the only advantage a Krenov has is that Krenov made it. The value of art is exactly what we assign to it.
I remember having spent a lot of time in the 1980s with wildlife artist Hayden Lambson, who is a friend of my grandfather. At the time he was just an amateur painter. He had a typical desk job. He would show his works at local art shows where people spread out their paintings on the lawn or makeshift easels with prices marked in little colored stickers. The turning point in his life came when a renowned artist visiting an art show paused at one of his works, picked it up, and wrote Hayden a check for three times his asking price. As Hayden's eyes widened, the artist said, "Don't you ever sell a painting for anything less than that amount." Now, of course, Hayden paints full time, has a full plate of commissions, and commands four and five figures for originals. He doesn't paint any better or worse now than when he was hawking his canvases in parks. The difference in the prices and respect he commands was in finally realizing what impact his work was having on others.
In a sense, the appreciation of art -- whether it's a coffee table, a house, or a painting of a white-tailed deer -- is arbitrary. Why did we pick Wright, out of all his contemporaries who were following the same design principles, to be the exemplar of a particular style in a particular art form? Why are we spending millions of dollars preserving his offerings (including some of the most uncomfortable furniture ever built) at letting others be destroyed? I don't know why. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and therefore preservation comes from the wallet of that same beholder.
| I love the way the two houses look and they way they are set | into their respective landscapes, but I'd prefer not to even | think seriously of living in them.
And that's a widely-shared opinion.
But, see, now we have to go back and revisit that "take-it-or-leave-it" philosophy. Wright, in addition to his visual motivation, was also practical. He wanted his work to be visually appealing, but also useful and practical. He used lots of windows in order to provide natural light, but that wasn't expected to come at the cost of freezing your kiester off during a harsh Chicago winter. If you got cold sitting next to a window, Wright would have advocated replacing his window with a better one.
Wright spent a lot of time working on designs that he intended to be easy to live in and easy to build. He was big into the notion of pre-fab housing. We associated him with unique and visually stunning commissions for the very wealthy, but that isn't necessary the role he wrote for himself. He wanted houses that looked nice, but that anyone could afford to own.
"Mr. Wright, I like your chairs, but they're so terribly uncomfortable." Wright listened, and so version 2 had a sloped back. Still not as comfortable as a Laz-E-Boy, but Wright did pay attention to that kind of feedback. I'm not sure he would be pleased with the "preserve the original design at all costs" mentality with which some have addressed his work.
And so in that respect, perhaps both his houses and his furniture designs have passed into pure art, forsaking all semblance of function. But it's because we made it that way, not necessarily because Wright made it that way.
--Jay
On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:53:10 -0800, charlie b brought forth from the murky depths:
Didn't he make high-end cassette tape players?
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: Nakashima for example does not do as much for me. His chair is mostly : impractical unless you have a huge room. And I suspect it won't : "wobble" properly. Although obviously stunning. All his other creations : remind me of someone grabbing a lump of wood, polishing one side and calling : it finished.
I agree with the impresion Nakashima's larger pieces make in photographs. But I saw a show of his work, including large stuff, and it was stunning. You really have to see it in person, and from different angles.
As to the earlier comments about Krenov:
It's fine and expected if someone doesn't like his work. But I think it's unfair to dismiss his cabinets as non-functional eye candy. There is a loooonnggg tradition in both European and Asian woodworking in the building of cabinets whose function is to serve as a display cabinet for small carvings, ceramics, etc. He isn't building cabinets to stuff old copies of National Geographic or computer games into.
If you really want to see "art furniture", look at Gary Knox Bennett's or Michael Hosaluk's stuff. Or, if you value your time, don't!
-- Andy Barss
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