chair advanced studio | spring 2022
flamed birch, steel, aluminum
While enrolled in a course on Tibetan Buddhism and tasked to design and fabricate a chair that would cater to a specific user group, the “chair for meditation” design grew out of my new responsibility to practice meditating weekly. The wider seat and low back are indicative of traditional meditation chair forms (sketches above) and, contrary to the rigid appearance, inspire proper posture in a variety of positions.
Testing newly acquired wood-working skills, flamed birch was shaped as precisely and cleanly as possible into slats held together by a repetition of ‘simple’ lap joinery. Arriving at a perfectly fitting joint demands enormous preparation, patience, and perseverance, a process that became itself a form of meditation:
Employing a bridgeport mill for the first time, my intention was to attempt to recreate the lap joinery on an extruded aluminum bar for a wabi-sabi aesthetic. An angle grinder, also employed for the first time, located an opalescent and reflective finish to contrast with the raw, smooth, subtly grained wood.
Indeed, the chair is a very difficult object to make.
