KWH introduced the first works of his Arc series in 2017, with the Repeat/Arc Side tables in bleached red oak and Carrara marble. From there he has launched a stunning series of pieces that showcase the illusive intersection of design thinking and technical mastery.
Process | The Arc Series by KWH
“The initial visual inspiration for The Arc Series was Carlo Scarpa’s use of repetition as a design element. From that point, the furniture line became a study of wood as a building material. Instead of using strictly traditional joinery, I was drawn to Wendell Castle’s use of stacked lamination to create mass and structure.”
“One of the constants of the world is that solid wood continually moves. This can create challenges because the more mass the wood has the more it moves. With stacked lamination, although the wood is oriented in the same direction, different pieces of wood move at different rates, the piece is in constant tension.” – Kai-wei Hsu, KWH
ARTIST IN RESIDENCY
On November 18, 2019 by Madeleine Parsons
- Colony
“I had access to the Foundation’s archive, which was very special, but essentially, being surrounded by deep forest/nature, and being alone and facing myself was a a very precious experience….”
This past Summer one of Colony’s designers found herself immersed in a residency through the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation. To say this was an honor for weaver Hiroko Takeda, would be something of an understatement.
The Foundation, located on a beautiful woodland site in Bethany, Connecticut serves to further “the revelation and evocation of vision through art.” During her time spent there, Hiroko was able to weave on Anni’s sturdy Structo loom; an experience she credits with bringing her back to basics. She found herself asking whether or not every single weft yarn thrown was right. Weaving is ultimately a very methodical practice and by examining each yarn and the structure it created, Hiroko felt the pieces had a freedom to take shape differently than they may have in her Brooklyn studio.
“…I didn’t make firm plans before the residency and I was out of my familiar environment. So there was a feeling of strangeness, of being no one, of starting over.
After a short time, I said, Okay, I am free here, and this is a chance to start a new life. But in the end, the work I did at the Foundation grew out of ideas that I have been thinking about for a long time.”
– Hiroko Takeda
Black Mass by Flat Vernacular
Introducing Black Mass, an experiential art installation by Flat Vernacular in their Norwalk, CT, home and studio, in celebration of Halloween this year. Designers and artists, Payton Turner and Brian Kaspr lit a pagan alter, carved an ungodly number of pumpkins, erected a ghostly graveyard outside of a hand-painted and hand-constructed blacklight cathedral dance floor. Proving that art and design is more than just products, Payton and Brian took their pattern and graphic design, illustration and hand-lettering to a new level of experimental installation. Fun party too.
Contact us at info@goodcolony.com with collaborative ideas on immersive installation, and to learn more about Payton and Brian’s abilities to blow your mind.
Notes from the Curator: Fall 2019
Homogenize.
verb
a: to blend (diverse elements) into a mixture that is the same throughout
b: to make uniform in structure or composition throughout : to make homogeneous
Growing up in central Massachusetts, my family would go on a weekly shopping trip to a store called Spag’s. A cash-only, discount department store that carried everything from lightbulbs to citrus. My memories of Spag’s range from the fried dough cart in the parking lot to bumping into my 5th grade math teacher (he was wearing jeans! I was so embarrassed!)
Spag’s had a great run, but when a Walmart opened its doors five minutes down Route 9, it didn’t stand a chance. Slowly my beloved warehouse retailer started making changes to its policies, inventory and pricing, in an effort to compete with the superstore down the street. A fight they inevitably lost.
We tell ourselves this is the nature of commerce. We tell ourselves this is the nature of competition. We lament that what happened to Spag’s is sad, but unavoidable in the American marketplace.
But what happens when the industry and market thrive and depend on nuance, texture and diversity? The very nature of good design is antithetical to homogenization, and it’s terrifying to see the Walmarts of our industry growing ever swiftly and effectively.
We absolutely can’t beat them – these giants are here to stay. But we can acknowledge the importance of the Other. The importance of diversity of thought, textural context of process, and nuance of many design minds; pushing themselves to find a better solution, a better material, a better path than the fastest/cheapest/easiest.
When content, products, or ideas are bandied about by the same small handful of large companies, it endangers the essence of design. These companies are engaged in a self congratulatory monologue that prohibits diversity of voice. But as Colony and so many of our beloved counterparts are discovering, the very act of being and working preserves an alternative perspective; helping to keep the conversation of great, nuanced design alive.
-Jean Lin
Introducing | A Space
A SPACE is a New York-based design & art studio, co-founded by Anna Aristova and Roza Gazarian in 2016. After meeting Anna and Roza during NY Design Week 2019, we were drawn to their collaborative approach towards their limited edition collections of stone and metal-based furniture.
The Found Collection, now available at Colony, is a series of limited edition works that let the stone dictate the final form. Each piece of marble was hand-picked at a small family-owned quarry in the South of Turkey with an intention to work around its imperfections. This collection exposes the rough texture of natural stone, celebrating its beauty and reminding of the mountains that the stone came from.
Each object is a one-of-a-kind creation that beckons to look beyond mere form and material, and to connect to the primordial nature of the elements.
Endless Summer
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