What initially made you pursue furniture design? As a recent graduate, how has your approach to design changed from when you first got to RISD?

I originally came to RISD to pursue painting, but quickly realized that I deeply desired to work within three dimensions after I was first introduced to a woodshop my freshman year. My relationship with designing was built upon the fact that I had never done it before, which led to a way of creating that wasn’t impeded by preconceived notions of what furniture and woodworking were “supposed to look like.” This helped me escape the craft mythos and canon that wooden objects can sometimes be stuck in, for better or for worse. As I progressed and learned more about the tradition and history of woodworking, I kept in mind how I felt about furniture when I knew nothing of the field, and how I could eventually use my practice to inspire viewers who may not have a tangible relationship with wood to begin cultivating one.

I soon became aware that the initial reason I knew very little about how furniture and our built environment was created was due to the abstraction of present day materials. It is difficult to imagine the throughline from a tree to an Ikea table. In our post-industrial world, lumber is typically available as rectilinear monoliths ready for consumption, or completely re-engineered planar, composite sheets that bear no resemblance to the form or structure of a tree. Wood’s original growth patterns of annual rings, bark, pith, rot, and knots, are hidden, devalued, and rejected. This abstraction, and the distortion it does to the emotional connections between trees, humans, and lumber, is what I aim to combat.

Nowadays, my approach to design is still strongly rooted in the accessibility of my work, especially in relation to those who may not personally be invested in art. The pedestal that fine art is placed on can often become a barrier for entry to those who are not in this world. Furniture, through its universal nature, becomes a vessel that can allow for concepts to be disseminated to a wider audience. Although my furniture may still be presented in a gallery setting, everyone has a chair, table, or footstool at home. Seeing familiar forms in these environments that previously may have felt inaccessible creates a grounding connection between art and everyday life, which is integral to me.

You’ve recently had a solo show exhibiting your work which must be very exciting for a new designer. How was that experience, and how have you been navigating your post grad life as a designer?

It was extremely rewarding to be given the trust to fulfill a vision immediately after graduating, and definitely allowed me to maintain a creative momentum that continues to this day. This show, Monolithic Forestry, allowed me to flesh out a lot of concepts that I did not have enough time and space to fully commit to while in school, serving as the perfect capstone to my time at RISD. This also helped me get all of the habits I had built up at school, both good and bad, out of my system, giving me a completely blank slate after this show concluded, which was the most beneficial aspect of this opportunity.

I currently make work in Fall River, Massachusetts, at Smokestack Studios, and live in Providence, Rhode Island, where I have resided my entire life. Being able to sustain a career in the arts in my hometown has been a dream of mine since a child, and it really means the world to me that this prophecy is beginning to come true. I am a product of my environment, and I truly believe being in proximity to Providence directly correlates to breakthroughs in my creative practice. Because life is relatively slow here it leads to a pretty cerebral existence, where one must look inwards and continue evolving in order to stay engaged. Everything about Rhode Island feels perfectly tailored for me to create art in an efficient and rigorous manner, and I plan to stay here for many more years to come.

We see bold uses of color in a lot of your pieces. What’s the story behind these colors and how do you use them?

I first utilized paint in order to focus all attention to the endgrain planes of my work, and to evoke the image of a cross cut section, akin to sliced bread, exposing the inner machinations of my objects. When something is completely painted, it could hypothetically be made of any material, which is a notion that I find especially beautiful. Only once it has been cut open is its truth revealed.

The colors used in Monolithic Forestry are OSHA specified industrial latex paints, called Safety Red, Safety Blue, and Safety Yellow. If you see a primary colored pipe, sign, or other industrial ephemera in the wild, it is most likely covered in this paint. I wanted these works to have a correlation to the real world, as if these cedar monoliths could be found on the side of the highway, on a construction site, or in an alleyway. After this collection I took a detox from color as I thought I had become reliant on it, but I hope to one day return to primaries, as I think it is one of the most beautiful and fun color palettes to work in.

Your works utilize a unique choice of wood. Can you tell us about that and what drew you to it in particular?

In my current work, I use construction grade White Cedar 5x5s from Home Depot to create extruded, brutalist seating. Through an involved process these trees have been transformed from natural, unconstrained forms into indistinguishable building blocks. This metamorphosis begins on industrial plantations, where the cedars are grown at an accelerated rate in monocultures and then shipped across the nation for consumption. The timbers are never given time to dry, causing them to immediately start imploding as their moisture content decreases and they begin to shrink.

This transformation is put on display, with the end grain planes in my finished works showcasing the checking, knots, dry rot, and growth rings of each individual cedar. Each end grain tile is a visual diagram documenting the vicious life cycle these trees were born into and the trauma of the supply chain. Together, these planes become living, breathing mosaics, highlighting the ongoing tension between nature and industry.

One choice that caught our eye is the unconventional use of objects such as the bronze apple and taxidermied rabbit attached to your bench. What’s the story behind those?

This began from a desire to utilize figurative elements in addition to my seating forms in order to embrace a more narrative driven method of creating. After Monolithic Forestry, I noticed that my work was becoming a bit too formal for my taste, as a formal investigation into the politics and nature of industrial materials has already been extensively pursued through the American Minimalism Movement. I really wanted my own subjective voice and perspective on the U.S. to become an active player in my work again. These objects; a taxidermy rabbit, bronze cast apples and branches, and an ancient carved lion, harken back to an older, more biblical way of life. Together, they tell a story of the romanticized past, one that was obliterated due to the advent of the industrial revolution. The benches they live on, made of lumber who’s quality could only exist in the 21st century, act as their plinths, telling a story between the old world and the new. My end goal is for form and material to come together to create an intertwined narrative, with sculptures of animals, mortals, and natural ephemera residing on the landscapes of benches, telling a story that one can partake in simply by taking a seat.