like choosing friends

Photo of Sam Maloof armchair by Jonathan Pollock

There’s a lot of work being done today that doesn’t have any soul in it. The technique may be the utmost perfection, yet it is lifeless. It doesn’t have a soul. I hope my furniture has a soul to it.

Designer/Woodworker Sam Maloof, as cited in Maloof on Maloof, a Smithsonian American Art Museum online exhibition. The self-taught furniture maker Sam Maloof passed away last Thursday at 93.

In a story broadcast on NPR a month before he died Maloof was quoted as saying:

When making furniture, start with the legs: They're like values, principles, beliefs. Choosing the arms is like choosing friends. And the seat keeps you upright, steady and looking ahead toward goals and the future.

The Riverside Art Museum is running a retrospective exhibit of Maloof's work, Grace and Grain, through July 2nd.

zazen

I'd pimp this piece even if it hadn't been designed by one of my favorite artists. But it was, so even better.

Aidan Olive is the stage name for the fabulously talented collective of Aric Mayer and Marni Saling -- two recent emigrants from Brooklyn who have returned to their early home in the Pacific NW.

Now settled into Bellingham, WA, outside of Seattle, they've introduced the Zen Bench as the first item in a line of promised pieces.

Modern lines. Designed to survive the ages. (So want this one.)

via aidan olive