Cultivation Objects

However a large part of resistance relies on building community. So I am inviting everyone to come over for a coffee and hang out at the studio. What friends have started calling “Cultivation Cafe” in jest. Come read some books, play some records and have a conversation. DM FOR ADDRESS If you don’t want to come to Greenpoint, meet at 4pm at Foley Square (more details at @peoplesforumnyc )

In honor of this years Fredericks and Mae Ornament Sale in support of @wckitchen : I made this little one of a kind umbrella bell to help beat those winter blues. Each section was hand hammered and assembled with some very tiny TIG welds. It comes with an (also very tiny) cherry mallet I turned on the lathe. :) Hit it and you will hear a surprising loud D# (I had to check the tuning after Max asked) There are also ornaments made by so many other artists. I’ve seen images and there are some really great ones. Come join for a little preview sale this Sunday from 2-4 at 6 Allen Street NYC at @fredericksandmae The ornaments will also go live on their website December 3rd if you aren’t NYC based.

Here are a couple of Vagari Chairs in the studio. I thought it would be nice to have them sweep both ways. It’s somewhat tricky to make these. Steam bending the parts into a helix was a bit of a brain melt at first. I had to make a couple custom tools to be able to complete a few of the processes. Like trimming a compound curve and cutting a dado (groove for the non ébéniste nerds) in a variable internal radius that supports the seat panel. Sometimes you have to take a long complex path to arrive at simplicity. These are shown in fumed cherry and were released during the @_sightunseen_ design week presentation @hostonhoward

This is the Durruti Chair. It was named after Buenaventura Durruti, the Spanish anarchist and labor organizer who fought for the dignity and liberation of workers. I spent the day today taking these photos of the chair in the studio, where I make all the objects that you see. I am here every day. It seemed most appropriate to document it within the site of labor itself, emphasizing that beauty is inseparable from the conditions of its making. It is a reminder that chairs, like movements, support us only when built on solidarity and intention, the resilience inherent of the working class craftsmanship, a tribute to those who build, repair, and persist. Resist, resist, resist. No rest. This chair is made from fumed cherry with fabric from @dedarmilano It is available through the shop at @_sightunseen_ Or shoot me an email.

This is the Ploughshare Cabinet Like many people that have small studio practices I work most days alone. These days specifically, I am always considering what does it mean to make something beautiful (hopefully) and quiet, in a time of collapse? The cabinet’s form emerged from this tension. The doors are hand carved to resemble curtains, a deliberate inversion of material expectations: wood standing in for cloth, hardness imitating softness. A dialectic tromp-l’oeil that acts as a veil, theatrical and domestic, concealing what lies within. When opened, the interior reveals drawers embossed with the constellation Ursa Major. Each drawer is fitted with a series of small hand hammered brass knobs that form the shape of the Starry Plough, both a literal tool and a historical symbol of political labor, resistance, and agrarian reform. I was reading the book Seeing <—> Making by Susan Buck-Morss while building this. Her call to dissolve the separation between conceptual and manual labor, theoretical and physical making, offered a kind of permission. Making becomes a form of reading, and material becomes an argument. The social fabric of the United States feels especially frayed: growing economic disparity, the erosion of public trust, the hollowing out of collective meaning, rampant and illegal oppression of vulnerable communities. In that context, is it ridiculous to consider making furniture a form of resistance, not in grand gestures, but in its insistence on care, precision, and permanence? I try to hold onto the belief that even functional objects can still carry weight, both symbolic and literal. The idea of hammering swords into ploughshares, turning weapons into tools for creation and repair, has long been used to signal peace, but here I see it more as a practice of reorientation and transformation. The cabinet metabolizes it, slowly, carefully, into something useful, attentive, and intimate. It’s a small gesture, but it’s one I made with the hope that making still matters. Come see this and other works at @_sightunseen_ Exhibition this Friday at 21 Howard 12-9pm. Along beautiful works by @known__works @samklemick and @sunfishnyc

The Anticline Pot. The edition size is 220 plus 3AP. They are hand made and Max and I do all the assembly at the studio. The nascency of the idea to make a coffee pot stems from the memory of waking up early to go climb mountains with my father. To be literal, an anticline is an arch shaped fold of rock layers formed in tectonic shifts during mountain building through which a series of dynamic undulating contours are created. The shape forms under a balance of pressure and release. The handles are made from a single storm fallen cherry tree from upstate NY. It’s available through the website in bio. Thanks to @charles_billot for the photos and @christiekeshet for the art direction on these images. Thanks to Heaven 17 for this banger. “We don’t need this fascist groove thang.”

For those of us that aren’t in London and able to see it in person at @lamb.gallery @32stgeorge with @studiowright_ The Pyroclast Teapot named after the pyroclastic flows of a volcano. This is a one off piece in which the sacrificial mold was hand carved. The molten metal reacts with the residual water in the mold to create steam. When casting you generally create vent holes and sprues so the pressure can be released but I intentionally didn’t add them so the mold would explode underground. Creating all the visible fissures. After hand peening the inside, I spent hours carefully welding the pieces back together creating the finished vessel. The wooden insert of the box was carved along the contours of the organic shape of the pot so the two fit together like a puzzle. An imprint like a stone lifted from the earth, peaking through lava tubes. Earth is so beautiful and terrifying, the way it destroys and rebuilds ad infinitum. With complete disregard for anything outside its perpetual flow. No end goal no control, just this forever and ever. Thanks the my friend @charles_billot as usual the the beautiful photos.

Here are couple of moments from the studio. I don’t usually spend time documenting the process in a meaningful way. I find it a bit distracting. I would much rather inject my attention and spirit into the objects I make rather than succumb to the performative nature of process. Guy Debord said “All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.” And that was in the 1960s I think. I don’t know when he wrote “La société du spectacle“ but sometime around then. I wonder what he would have thought about the current times where you don’t exist unless your image is represented in the spheres of social media. Did you know that I am a real person, that exists in the old real life? We may have run into each other on the streets of NYC or Paris or in a cafe? You probably didn’t know it was me because I haven’t been here, in our new reality. I hope we meet someday by one means or another.

This is the cherry box that holds the “Pyroclast Teapot” It’s a one off teapot that I made for the exhibition In Good Company, that was put together by @lamb.gallery and @studiowright_ at @32stgeorge The teapot is more interesting than the box I think, but you may have you own opinion. There are many other great artists involved in the exhibition as well. If in London, I encourage you to attend the opening this Thursday February 13th 6-8pm.

Very flattered to have the Anticline featured in this months edition of @wallpapermag as part of their annual Design Awards for 2025. Thanks to @hugomacd @sophiegladstone Photo by Neil Godwin I really appreciate it

At this point I think most of you have seen the Anticline pot but I figured I’d put it on here anyway because I like these photos that Charles and Christie took. I’m grateful I have talented friends. For those of you that haven’t seen it, here it is. The Anticline. It’s a coffee pot The nascency of the idea to make a coffee pot stems from the memory of waking up early to go climb mountains with my father. To be literal, an anticline is an arch shaped fold of rock layers formed in tectonic shifts during mountain building through which a series of dynamic undulating contours are created. The shape forms under a balance of pressure and release. The Anticline Pot is hand made and limited edition cast from aluminum. The handles are made from a single storm fallen cherry tree from upstate NY. It’s available through the website in bio.