Curious about what it might be like to live in a smart home? Fascinated by wearable art? Interested in architecture and the future of design? Boston Design Week 2017 has something for everyone interested in exploring how design infuses our lives.

Actually 12 days long, Boston Design Week 2017 is in year four. Last year’s event had more than 70 participants, in 84 different events, in nine Boston neighborhoods, and 10 cities and towns in the greater Boston area. The intent of the “week”—March 29th-April 9th this year—is to explore and illustrate the vital role design plays in our lives.

Image from Coded Couture | Curated by Judith Hoos Fox

Tony Fusco, whose company, Fusco & Four/Ventures, LLC  Boston, is co-producing the event, says New England offers a unique design perspective. “I think there is a very interesting dichotomy going on in the world of design in New England,” he says. “On the one hand, we see an increasing number of artisans and craftspeople who are focused on creating individual works, fashion, furniture, and other design and decorative arts with a handmade aesthetic. Not only are we seeing a strong increase in custom-made design, but also, increasingly, that design is being done fully cognizant of the impact on the environment, sustainable or renewable resources, and the desire to create and do no harm.”

The well-conceived schedule of Boston Design Week 2017 is in keeping with the theme of form and function. The daily calendar makes planning your visit(s) easy. A few events that caught our eye include the four Kick-Off events on March 29th, one each in Back Bay, Fort Point, South End, and Metro West. The Fort Point Channel kick-off event features the non-profit Artists for Humanity hosting an open studio, showcasing the works of art and design by the teenagers hired to work in the design profession in their much-lauded organization.

10th Anniversary AD20/21: Art & Design of the 20th and 21st Centuries and the Boston Print Fair

The design-intensive week sticks the landing with AD20/21: Art & Design of the 20th & 21st Centuries and The Boston Print Fair held at The Cyclorama, Boston Center for the Arts, a ticketed gala to celebrate Boston Design Week and benefit Design Museum Boston. This curated show will feature nearly 50 vanguards in the fields of modern to contemporary fine art and design. Jonathan Leo Fairbanks, director of the contemporary Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, will be honored as the 2017 Lifetime Achievement recipient. Down in Rockland at the Roomscapes Cabinetry and Design Center’s massive showroom, you can pair wine with chocolate as you cruise their high-quality interiors and dream about the perfect kitchen on April 3rd, 4:00-7:30 PM. They’ve also partnered with Brenda Taylor, art curator and consultant for Liquid Art House, with a gallery of her picks. Event is free, but an RSVP is requested.

Boston Design Week – art and design show and events
Boston, Massachusetts
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Top image – Builder: FBN Construction | Architect: David Mullen

The post Boston Design Week 2017: Living by Design appeared first on Take Magazine.

It may be chilly in Bridgeport, Connecticut, this time of year, but at The Bananaland it always feels like a tropical getaway. This banana-themed marketing and design agency in Connecticut’s Park City will give your small business a makeover and have way too much fun doing it. The team of “specialist concierges”—Marcella Kovac, the outspoken civic-involvement advocate; Laurie Kovac, the cat-loving photography enthusiast; and Jordan Rabidou, the coding homesteader—are not only incredibly talented at what they do, but they’re also some of the most passionate people you’ll ever meet. The affection they have for their stomping grounds emanates through how they do business. They’ll curate your brand to perfection taking your vision and goals and sprinkling their own ideas and expertise into the mix, banana style.

Marcella Kovac

Laurie Kovac

Jordan Rabidou

The seven-year-old vacation of a company was founded on the notion that good design is born from crazy ideas. Their impeccable work and service has made for very happy clients, in turn filling a niche in the up-and-coming city. The Bananaland provides branding, website design, a strong social media presence, and everything in between. “We have so much fun in what we’re doing. We don’t want to be taken too seriously and we don’t want this to be like ‘work work,’” says Jordan. How can you have a bad time working in an office with pineapple wallpaper, tropical plants, and assorted banana paraphernalia strewn about?! It goes without saying, seasonal depression is not a thing here.

The magic of The Bananaland lies in the three co-owners’ unshakeable passion for the city they live in. Disclaimer: If you don’t want to be persuaded to move to Bridgeport, don’t talk to them. “Marcella and I moved here nine years ago, and we saw so much potential in the city,” says Jordan. “There’s so much rich diversity, and an art scene that’s coming out from underground and flourishing, and we are just so happy to be a part of it,” Marcella adds. Their love for their city is infectious and so well-spoken, making them the unofficial marketing department of Bridgeport.

This is why starting one badass company wasn’t enough. Four years ago, Marcella and Jordan founded B:Hive Bridgeport, a place where local business owners, freelancers, and creatives can go to foster positive energy, enthusiasm, and an infallible sense of community in a co-workspace. “Collaborating with other people and creatives is what we’re all about,” Marcella declares. The cleverly casual atmosphere of B:Hive allows for friendly connections, business growth, potlucks—nothing fuels entrepreneurship like home-cooked goodies, that’s a fact—and serves as a catalyst for a reinvention of the city. “We try to act as a partner to the city and try to show everyone how wonderful it is. Our goal is to change the stigma around Bridgeport and show how cool it is if you look below the surface,” says Jordan.

Not a small business or instagram model seeking to expertly curate your aesthetic? No problem, The Bananaland doors are always open and Marcella, Jordan, and Laurie would love to meet you! Grab your boarding pass, The Bananaland is going to take you on your dream vacation—and you don’t even have to leave New England.

The Bananaland – marketing and design company
Bridgeport, Connecticut
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All photography by Victoria Gloria Photography

The post Heading to the Bananaland appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally ran in our April/May 2016 print issue. 

The fickle haute monde of the fashion industry, where “one day you’re in and the next day you’re out,” as Heidi Klum famously warns on Project Runway, may tailor fame and fortune for anointed designers willing to edit their aesthetic to win and retain the idolization of tastemakers.

That arc of ambition doesn’t interest Neville Wisdom, the self-taught designer from Jamaica who can pull off dressing up his dreadlocks and a T-shirt with a tweed jacket that is rendered exuberant through an unexpected cascade of playful pockets.

Wisdom’s success as a womenswear designer with two spacious showrooms/retail stores in New Haven, Connecticut, is built on a signature style of architectural—”little bit more constructed,” as Wisdom puts it— dresses, skirts, sweaters, tops, coats, and more that are “classic with a bit of an edge.” That funky edge might mean turning up the volume with color, embracing bold patterns, or adding unexpected flourishes.

Making Neville Wisdom’s Fashion Design Studio work as a business model involves essentially delivering bespoke garments at wholesale prices by selling the clothing directly to customers, while also offering women a personal shopping experience that results in a perfect fit through complimentary custom alterations.

Neville Wisdom with pieces from his collection.

“We’re not trying to chase millions,” Wisdom says of his business and creative ethos. “We love what we do, and we love how people feel when they wear our clothes.” Where did his inspiration come from?

“I watched a lot of old movies, even as a kid,” Wisdom has said about the origins of his love for the vintage classicism in his designs. In his teens, he became serious about fashion and launched his first design shop in Jamaica while in his early twenties.

Jamaica didn’t seem like fertile ground for a fashion designer, at least compared to the United States, so Wisdom emigrated to Connecticut, where he transitioned into a position as a surgical technician at Yale- New Haven Hospital for seven years.

Design remained his primary aspiration, however, and when Wisdom made the leap of faith to open his first atelier and retail shop four years ago in the Elm City’s Ninth Square district, he gambled that New Haven’s status as an arts and culture hub—anchored by Yale University—would provide a steady stream of discerning clients.hat faith paid off, with the flagship location on Orange Street spawning a second, larger location in the hip Westville section of the city, home to antiques shops, galleries, cafés, and specialty shops. Launched a year ago, the new space on Whalley Avenue is nearly 5,000 square feet, with a street level showroom and a basement where the magic happens.

That faith paid off, with the flagship location on Orange Street spawning a second, larger location in the hip Westville section of the city, home to antiques shops, galleries, cafés, and specialty shops. Launched a year ago, the new space on Whalley Avenue is nearly 5,000 square feet, with a street level showroom and a basement where the magic happens.

The expansion was made possible in part from a Small Business Express Program grant from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, which matches between $20,000 and $100,000 in funds that a venture can show on its books.

In addition to allowing Wisdom to add a few jobs, the grant paid for equipment that has enabled digitization of the design and manufacturing process, the centerpiece of which is a massive Autometrix Advantage fabric-cutting table.

Detail of Neville Wisdom coat

“Once I’m satisfied with the pattern I digitize it,” says Wisdom. “All of our patterns become digital patterns.” The process has streamlined the number of sample patterns it takes to get to the final one, and has greatly reduced the amount of waste. When the final design is set, each piece of clothing is constructed by one individual.

Rather than designing fabrics and contracting to have them produced, Wisdom prefers to buy existing fabric of great quality. With it he produces between four and 14 pieces of any one design—usually around 12—and keeps the leftover fabric in case someone wants something custom-made. And now he has to make two sets of each design, one for each showroom.

The new spring line makes its debut in a runway show in early April. “Every year the building changes,” says Wisdom, who plans to include some menswear in his collection for the first time, and to feature men’s linen shirts and pants in his stores this season. For his womenswear, the designer favors raw silk and will feature a lot of “great cotton” in pieces that are thin and light for summer.

The designer, who previously sold clothing exclusively in his stores, has launched an online shop, making his fashions widely accessible.

Photos by Ireland Studios

Follow Neville Wisdom on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post Neville’s Wearable Wisdom appeared first on Take Magazine.

The painted wooden sign was one of New England’s earliest art forms, starting back when colonial innkeepers lured customers with bold hand-lettering and eye-catching imagery such as bulls, lions, and goblets.

Portland, Maine artist Will Sears has a thing for wooden signs. His company Better Letter Hand Painted Signs makes signs for restaurants, shops, farms, and other small businesses that evoke the look of commerce in the early 20th century. But when it comes to Sears’ art, the medium is the message.

“My fine art is very closely tied to sign painting,” he says. Recent works involve sawing his own hand-painted, pre-weathered wooden signs into pieces, then re-assembling them to create really cool Americana-inspired abstract patterns.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, the 27 year old also does paintings and collages that cheekily combine hand lettering with old newspaper images, business stationery, blueprints, pornography, and photos from CPR manuals. Shortly after graduating from Syracuse University in 2010, he landed in Portland via a residency for young artists led by prominent sculptor John Bisbee.

“I really loved New England – my dad grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire,” says Sears, who also spent summers at Camp Belknap on Lake Winnipesaukee. “Before I knew it, it was home.”

Sears helped design the Oxbow Brewery’s taproom in Portland. Photo by Bret Labelle Photography

Sears is entrepreneurial, moving comfortably in and out of the commercial and artistic worlds. That’s also true of some of his clients, a major one being the local Oxbow Brewing Company of Newcastle and Portland. These days, where there is an art scene, there is usually also a craft brewery (or three). The artisanship behind Oxbow’s Belgian farmhouse ale-inspired brews is reflected in Sears-designed labels, as well as wall murals in the Newcastle brewery and, in the Portland taproom, barstool tops made from – you guessed it – wooden signs.

Sears is excited to be co-curating a show this summer called Ode to Letters through the Biddeford, Maine art collective Engine. “It’s a three-part show of work – graffiti art, sign painting, and letterpress – that exhibits a love for letters,” he explains. And he and his girlfriend, artist Tessa Greene O’Brien, recently received a grant through the Space Gallery’s Kindling Fund to start a mural initiative in Portland – one with a focus on contemporary art.

“It’s a chance to bring contemporary art, which might not be found outside of a museum or a gallery, to a public forum,” Sears says. Now, that’s a good sign.

The artist with his installation of sculpture and signage at Portland’s Space Gallery. Photo by Bret Labelle Photography

The article first appeared on the Take site on February 18th, 2015.

Will Sears and Better Letter Hand Painted Signs are on Instagram and facebook.

The post It’s a Sign appeared first on Take Magazine.

Ben Blanc arrived in Providence a little over a decade ago to get his Master of Fine Arts at the Rhode Island School of Design. Like many RISD graduates, the Illinois-born designer stuck around after graduation.

“In Providence, you can explore creative boundaries without feeling that you’re under a microscope,” he says. “Everyone’s pretty respectful here. It’s what separates Providence from places like New York.”

Blanc’s work inhabits the margins between design and art. For The Exchange, a 2012 gallery show, he constructed 200 baseball-sized objects out of dyed Douglas fir. Smooth with irregular angled edges, the black pieces resemble lumps of coal. One, and only one, contained a gold nugget worth roughly $1,300. Gallery visitors, unable to tell which piece had the gold inside, were allowed to buy the objects for $30 each. When each buyer removed his or her purchase from the gallery, Blanc replaced it with a large, black wooden X.

Providence is a great city for anyone working in metal, according to Blanc. “Gorham was such a huge player here,” he says, referring to the silver company founded in Providence in 1831. “And there are many small shops still in operation here doing powder coating, anodizing, lost-wax casting, [and] metal spinning.”

Blanc works in an old single-story brick building that also houses a screen-printing studio, a florist, and a manufacturer of luxury leather goods. He designed oak and leather booths for New Rivers, one of Providence’s most celebrated restaurants, as well as walnut benches for the recently expanded Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.

Ben (left) and Aja Blanc in their Providence, Rhode Island, design studio with their brass planters | photo by Ian Travis Barnard

Late last year, he began a formal collaboration with his wife, Aja, and the two are now partners in a furniture firm that specializes in minimalist, limited-edition furniture, lighting, and objects. The pair’s recent offerings include a two-piece, moon-shaped coffee table made of white oak and Vermont white marble, and a bronze apatosaurus. “It’s really fun to sculpt dinosaurs,” Ben says, by way of explanation.

In May, Ben and Aja debuted a new series at Site Unseen OFFSITE in conjunction with NYCxDesign, New York City’s annual weeklong celebration of design. Aja’s influence is immediately evident in the collection, which focuses on lunar objects and “cultish wuwu,” as she laughingly phrases it. The collection includes spun brass planters, a coil rug, and a half-moon mirror whose bottom half is composed of silk mohair and wool.

Ben sources many materials locally and works with several of the region’s small manufacturing shops for finishing work. “I’m working with wood, stone, and metal,” he says. “Honest materials that the people have some connection to.”

Follow Ben and Aja online and on Instagram.

This article originally appeared in our September 2015 Print issue.

Top photograph of Ben and Aja Blanc by Ian Travis Barnard

The post Blanc Looks appeared first on Take Magazine.

2016 was a huge year for furniture designer Vivian Beer of Manchester, New Hampshire. In addition to countless features and exhibitions for her fine art furniture, Vivan received a fellowship from United States Artists and—get this—WON a Chopped-esque reality show for furniture designers hosted by Ellen Degeneres. Not even the fraught election of Donald Trump, with his demagogic, explicitly misogynistic rhetoric, could slow her down.

Vivian Beer at work | Photo courtesy of the artist

Ellen’s Design Challenge is a competitive reality show where contestants race against the clock and each other to complete furniture design challenges. The finalists of the show get a cash prize and the unique honor of designing the furniture in the Ellen Degeneres Show green room. Beer describes the experience as both wildly stressful and a furniture maker’s fantasy, “If you strip away the stress of the timeline,” she says, “it’s actually every artists and designers dream to be given a giant shop, a person to help you, all the materials you want and all you have to do is make something awesome.”

With a self-described “sexy industrial” style, Beer’s work is gorgeous-yet-functional fine art. The sleek, long lines of her shiny benches and the staunch stance of her high-seated chairs really speak to the “sexy industrial” label, simultaneously playful and sturdy. It’s this blend of individuality, craft and function that not only won her Ellen’s Design Show, but also made her an obvious choice for one of the select few artists acknowledged by the United States Artists fellowship.

Cleo from the Anchored Candy series. Film by @glassandgear in #theANNEX #vivianbeer #interiordesign #metalworking #bench #contemporarydesign #ellendesignonhgtv

A video posted by Vivian Beer (@vivian_beer) on Nov 21, 2016 at 8:53pm PST

Like many other creatives, Beer and her team at the studio were upset after hearing the news of Donald Trump gaining enough electoral college votes to become president. The ethnocentric, socially conservative, anti-immigrant policies the President-elect threatened to implement to get into office is particularly concerning to them, since the artist is married to a Mexican woman and runs a bi-cultural translation operation.

Today, Beer remains aggressively optimistic, choosing to acknowledge the gains we’ve made as a society instead of throwing her hands up, “I feel like very few great things have ever been built out of fear–and a lot of really great things have been built out of hope and confidence and belief. I certainly don’t make work that is political in an overt way, but I truly believe that making things is the polar opposite of destroying things.” With her recent appointment to the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, we can count on Vivian Beer to use her optimism and social understanding to create positive opportunities for artists working in the state of New Hampshire. 

Public bench outside Hyatt Hotel in Arlington Virginia by Vivian Beer | Photo courtesy of the artist

Beer and her team plan to continue their work through 2017, with some expansions and ideological changes. Currently, she is developing a new line of furniture that is, according to the artist, “a little more fiscally accessible, something that’s in multiples and really more engaged in the design community rather than the fine art community.” Outside of these explicit plans for more affordable furniture, Beer and her team plan to expand their space in Manchester, hopefully having a group studio where other artists like her can feel supported and be seen.

Vivian Beer in her studio with her team

Vivian Beer is a furniture maker and designer living in Manchester, New Hampshire. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

Top photo public bench outside Hyatt Hotel in Arlington Virginia | Photo courtesy of Vivian Beer

The post Manchester’s “Sexy Industrialist” appeared first on Take Magazine.

About ten years ago, after finding his niche in the woodworking world, Oedel focused on a certain organization up in New Hampshire. Oedel fit right in at The New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association, a group of exceedingly skilled craftspeople in the New England area. He started there as a member then became the chairman of the association for a few years starting in 2012. When asked about Furniture Masters, his pride and respect for the people involved is evident in his voice, “The [Furniture Masters] who do the work are really stellar artists”, he told me right off the bat. “Once a year we get together and we all bring pieces with us and we all sit there and say ‘I hope my piece is good enough. I hope it stands up to everyone else’s.’ It really keeps us all on our toes.”

Furniture Masters puts on an annual gala and auction to bring together fellow craftspeople, interact with the community and clients, and showcase the tremendous work being done in the field. “There are so many ways to think about design, to think about furniture,” said Oedel “…the group is so good because we get together, we talk about it, and our discussions inform everyone’s work. In doing that, we all get better.” It’s clear how the creation of a community like Furniture Masters has enabled craftspeople from across New England to network and support each other, and in doing so, raise the level of skill and excellence being produced all around us.

Table by Richard Oedel | Macassar ebony, corner detail | Image courtesy of Richard Oedel

Indeed, this time Portsmouth NH shared in the success of the affair. Oedel pointed out that the event has moved around, from Concord and other parts of New Hampshire, but Portsmouth and its people in nature are particularly “friendly to the arts”. Held for the first time this year in the stunning 3S Artspace, Oedel explained how “it was an interesting space visually, our pieces fit in there well, and it brought people in to see what kinds of things were happening there”.

With the triumph of their 2016 gala back in September, Oedel looks toward the bright future of his craft. With Furniture Masters receiving positive attention and praise each year from the Portsmouth community, and with the new interest in handmade furniture coming from young people, he is excited to be doing work like this in this moment. The trend towards authenticity and handmade quality, over the cookie-cutter, IKEA-styles of recent years, has Oedel and fellow makers looking forward to brand new collaborations, and younger clients than ever, “It’s all happening on a younger level now,” Oedel described, “there was a time when we were all sitting there saying ‘does anybody under 50 appreciate anything that we’re doing?’”

The answer to that, as seen by the Furniture Masters and the outpouring of interest from the Portsmouth community, is an enthusiastic, yes.

Top image Fort Point Cabinetmakers, Richard Oedel center | Courtesy Richard Oedel

The post A Master of His Craft: Richard Oedel and the Joy of Design appeared first on Take Magazine.

Aaron Forrest and Yasmin Vobis met in architecture graduate school at Princeton University and established their love of architecture through informal projects together. After years of moving to various cities and pursuing different projects, Ultramoderne was born.

Ultramoderne is an award-winning architecture and design firm located in Providence, RI, run by Forrest and Vobis. According to their website, “The principals are driven by an experimental approach that leads to conceptually rigorous and well-executed designs. The office has experience working at a wide variety of scales, from single-family residences to urban-scale planning.” What makes Ultramoderne so unique, according to Forrest, is their focus and dedication to public space projects. They’re driven and passionate about figuring out different ways to engage with a broader public.

“Providence has been amazing,” Forrest says. The space they occupy within Rhode Island is certainly significant to them. They lived and worked in New York before moving to Providence, and both experiences were incredibly different. Forrest and Vobis truly seem to love the region in which they work now.

SOUTHLIGHT Performance Pavilion + Public Garden 2016, project in collaboration with RISD students and faculty | Photo by Jo Sittenfeld

“The thing I love about Providence are the many old industrial buildings that exist around the city.” explains Vobis. “Many of these are incredible spaces — large, open spaces with lots of natural light and a clear expression of structure. The challenge we face will be to understand how to reuse many of these buildings in the future — how we breathe new life into them and re-imagine them — instead of tearing them down and replacing them with cheaper, faster and less flexible buildings, which happens all too often.”

But Ultramoderne is just getting started. While they’ve had lots of business thus far, with past clients including the Van Alen Institute, National Parks Service, Chicago Parks District, and the Boston Society of Architects, they are ready for the next challenge. “I would like to see Ultramoderne tackle larger public projects,” explains Vobis. “Our office started with small-scale installations, which were a great opportunity for us to test new ideas and techniques… we relish the idea that architecture can be for everyone, not just those that can afford to have something commissioned.”

Forrest adds, “We’d love to be so lucky to continue what we’re doing and find out how architecture can do more to help the community at large.”

Weir Farm wayfinding project with Jessica Forrest, Noah Klersfeld, Suzanne Mathew, and Dungjai Pungauthaikan 2015

Yasmin Vobis received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California, Berkeley and her Master’s Degree from Princeton University, where she was awarded the Butler Traveling Fellowship and the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Thesis Prize. She has taught at Princeton University and currently teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Aaron Forrest (AIA, NCARB) is a licensed architect who teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. He received both his Bachelor’s Degree and Masters in Architecture from Princeton University. He has extensive professional experience, having practiced in New York with Bernheimer Architecture and Guy Nordenson and Associates Structural Engineers, and in Madrid with Ábalos & Herreros Arquitectos.

The post UltraNow UltraSmart Ultramoderne appeared first on Take Magazine.

Approaching Molly Hatch’s ceramic studio on the third floor of Florence, Massachusetts’ Arts and Industry building, every single footstep resounds through the hallways. That’s the way of former mill buildings. This one, solid and comfortable with its little bit of dustiness and roughness, leaves plenty of space for artists to remake its purpose.

For Hatch, the spot’s pitch-perfect, a leisurely walk from her house and design studio with her black dog, Hank. “When you’re a young person dreaming of the studio you’d one day work in, this is what you envision,” she explains. In Sunday mode, which is not unlike artist-at-work mode — jeans, a striped blue and white tee, and sneaks, auburn hair pulled into a high ponytail — Hatch is ready to lift plates from one of her kilns. The plates belong to an installation titled Illume for Todd Merrill Studio Contemporary in Manhattan. This “plate painting” depicts a blue and white vase, surrounded by a shiny, solid gold “frame.” Each plate that helps comprise the vase is painterly, simultaneously a swath of the overall pattern and a complete work of art in itself.

Hatch is known for her plate paintings, installations that rely upon individual painted plates organized to create a larger image. The first series, Covet, showed at Sculpture Objects Functional Art and Design (SOFA) in New York in 2012. For that, she drew upon the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Probably the best known—and the largest to date—of the plate paintings is Physic Garden, a permanent installation at Atlanta’s High Museum that measures 22 feet high and 17 feet wide, and required 456 plates to complete. Two 1750s Chelsea Factory plates that depict realistic flora and fauna in the “Hans Sloane” style served as source material for the project. Hatch finds the setting of Physic Garden in the museum’s Margaretta Taylor Lobby inspired. “There’s a window, and beyond the window, a reflecting pool,” she explains. “At night the wall, window, and reflecting pool move you, your eyes, in and out of the space. The architect put in an exhibition wall at exactly the right spot so that the work and the space are phenomenal fits for one another.”

Physic Garden 2013/14| Photo courtesy of High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia

Her latest big project, Passage, a solo show at the Dianich Gallery in Brattleboro, Vermont, co-presented with Todd Merrill Studio Contemporary, is a departure from the plate paintings. “The plate paintings rely upon the boundaries of the wall,” says Hatch. “I want to question the wall. I’m interested in making three-dimensional paintings that reveal different images from various angles.”

One way to sum up Hatch’s voraciousness as artist and designer is this — she’s a consummate conversationalist. Rather than rely on words, her conversations take place between past and present, commercial design and fine art, boundaries and space.

While she was creating Passage, which runs through July, her studio space was relatively empty. The sole full wall—no doors or windows or shelving—was blank. The floor was mostly bare, save for kilns sitting like urns and a number of large ceramic blocks—clean, white, and ready—in neat piles. The blocks were impressive, not exactly massive, and yet notably larger than most ceramic objects. Imagine ceramic versions of wooden blocks found in a preschool classroom—but large and somewhat wondrous, like an Alice in Wonderland teacup.

Detail from Passage | Photo by John Polak courtesy of Molly Hatch Studios

Hatch painted the blocks in different patterns, from a Middle Eastern tile to a weaving. These patterns generally do not “go together.” In the gallery, the blocks are set upon wooden and ceramic plinths painted in patterns and faux wood grain. Passage evolves from a series of cube vases Hatch recently created, objects that aren’t functional vases, but cubes with cutouts in the shape of vases to play upon both the idea of functionality and, simultaneously, negative space. For Passage, she posed a related question: “Do I need that cutout?”

As for the big blocks: “I wanted a chance to pull my work into space. I wanted it to come off the walls,” Hatch explains. “The idea is the pieces could be played with and restacked. I want to explore pattern and form, but in a three-dimensional space.”

Patterns often seen on functional objects, from vases to wallpaper, cover these non-functional forms. As if that idea isn’t sufficiently intriguing, Hatch plays with other juxtapositions. Some patterns are from history and others are more contemporary ones that tend to show up in a design context rather than art. She wants to lure them from functionality to see how they fare.

The Dianich Gallery is much more intimate than other places Hatch has exhibited. “I was drawn to that—and the chance to reach a different audience,” Hatch says. “In this setting, I’m able to focus upon a small, pointed project—and to take some risks within the constraints of this venue—a small gallery in a small town close to home.“

Hatch’s childhood and family background have a great deal to do with her sense that perpetual conversations arise from juxtaposing things people don’t often put together. Her parents eschewed a world of refined society and instead moved to southern Vermont, where they farmed. Décor at the farmhouse was unusual: Art and antiques in her family’s home and extended family’s residences were, like pieces she plays off of in her own art and design work, beautiful and significant and fine and enduring.

Covet Project: 2012 | Photo by John Polak courtesy of Molly Hatch Studios

As an adult, Hatch contemplates the role of beauty and delicacy, but she does so in the milieu of simple, hard work. She is a powerhouse. She credits her work ethic to her upbringing on the farm and her aesthetics in large part to family influences and exposure. “To have grown up with old-money objects and the farm’s demands, lessons I drew upon were complex—about taste and lifestyle,” she says. “I love that I interact with these questions on a daily basis.”

Interior design is another of Hatch’s influences. “I read interior design magazines to see what interests designers,” she says. “For example, I love the idea of putting an old object on a mantel and a contemporary cutout vase and pretty much encouraging the objects to talk to one another.”

That sets the stage for a paradigm that makes sense to Hatch. “When I first began to do design work for Anthropologie, some ceramic artists thought I was selling out. I disagreed and I still disagree,” she says. “I need to focus on creation of both the consumable and the unique object, and, rather than see those as oppositional choices, I find them complementary.”

She constantly extends ideas developed in one realm into another—she might create a one-of-a-kind vase and then make a series of commercial vases that are decorated with her paintings of vases. “I love to operate in consort, and to see where designs land best.” She maintains enthusiasm for the large plate paintings or the new work in “Passage,” and she also enjoys her ongoing work with Anthropologie. The way Hatch works—process and breadth—represents her unique heritage.

Image at top: Molly Hatch | Photo by John Polak, illustration by Jan Šabach

The post Off the Walls appeared first on Take Magazine.