Brooklyn, vonnegutkraft.com A couple in life and business, Katrina Vonnegut and Brian Kraft make beautifully crafted, sculptural but functional work from natural materials. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? The American design that we’re immersed in is rooted in the model of the self-sufficient, independent studio that thrives on taking as many aspects of production into its own hands. Working through the prototyping stages of experimentation and engineering all the way to manufacturing, this approach gives designers a dexterity with materials and a fluidity in their process that is really inspiring and has led to some great American design in recent years. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? We recently expanded our studio and are finishing up the buildout in the next month, adding a new office and more space for machinery and work benches. Since we spend most of our time there, we’ve really made it a priority to plan the space to be as efficient and comfortable as possible. We’re really excited to see it come together, and we’ll be jumping right in to work on our new collection for 2015. We’ve also recently joined Colony, a cooperative showroom in downtown Manhattan, where we’ll be releasing one new piece this fall, along with new editions of our Crescent Lounge and Relief Mirror. What inspires your work in general? In the everyday, just getting into our studio and trying out new tools and techniques, working out shapes and joints, and devising new ways of combining materials. Our practice ends up being really integral, including occasional exploration in prototyping details and full-scale mock-ups often before we’re even done with any technical drawings. On a more ethereal level, we try as often as possible to get deep into nature, where we find inspiration for texture and form. We just got back from our annual hike on Mt. Katahdin in Maine. The landscape there is otherworldly and expansive and has such range of rock formations caused by glacial cirques. Throughout our most recent trip up and down the mountain, we collected so many incredible images of rocks and mushrooms and lichens. Right now we’re really excited to use them as reference for our upcoming collection.

Brooklyn, vsby.co Visibility’s young RISD grads have serious pedigree — Sina Sohrab works for Bec Brittain while Joseph Guerra spent time with Industrial Facility and Big-Game — and a seriously cute debut collection under their belts. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design historically has been so interesting because of its relation to industry and innovation. Breakthroughs in materials and engineering have allowed for masterful work such as the Eames’s experiments with plywood, Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute, and Chris Bangle’s work as chief of design for BMW. This precedent allows for a multitude of new opportunities for us to challenge and innovate with new projects. In addition, America’s art movements have had a profound effect on us as well, from Robert Irwin and Donald Judd to Diebenkorn and Agnes Martin. As designers here in the U.S. we have a unique opportunity to be at the intersection of art and design even if we ourselves lean towards industrial design. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? We’re pretty excited by the diversity of projects that we have coming this year. We’re moving products into production, both new and old, we’re designing an experience-based event that will also premier a new product, and we’ll be debuting a new piece for a long-standing New York institution. There’s even more but we can’t share everything! What inspires your work in general? We are highly interested in objects that are familiar but challenging. It’s important that a piece be relatable to everyday users while also providing something innovative and exciting. Industrial Facility designed an alarm clock that resembles a bicycle bell. It’s a familiar object in a new context. Context and the history of design are very important to us. Most objects are fairly evolved and it’s crucial to understand the history of that object and how it got there.

New York, r-and-company.com The rough, geometric textures of Wolfe’s otherworldly glass creations are like nothing we’ve seen before.  What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design is strong and pluralistic now. I’m amazed how many independent studios/designers are producing great pieces. I find it hard to keep up with everything — even just what is going on in New York. I assume this is partially due to the time in which we find ourselves, both economically and culturally. More designers have decided to form their own businesses rather than working for larger companies. The venues to exhibit and show the work and the market to support it have grown significantly in recent years. There appears to be more emphasis now on formal aesthetics than on ironic/ jokey concepts, which were prevalent in the recent past. This shifting of the aesthetic is an important development. It reflects a maturity of ideas behind what is being made, and that that well-made objects have an inherent value when the are visually exciting. I also particularly enjoy seeing so much great new work in ceramic. I hope the same thing will happen in glass. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? Coming up this year, I will have work in two shows this November through R & Company — The Objects Show, and The Salon: Art + Design at the Park Avenue Armory. This December will be my first time exhibiting at Design Miami, also with R, which I am very excited about. Beyond that, I am planning for my first solo exhibition at R & Company, which will be in 2015. What inspires or informs your work in general? Working in glass with all its possibilities and inherent limitations has definitely informed the scope of what I am able to do. I have largely focused on a singular technique of blown-cast objects for some time now. This has allowed me to thoroughly explore and develop color, pattern, surface and the intuitive construction of the forms. I gain insight into what I am doing from a lot of visual sources in my environment and otherwise. I am interested in the organic deterioration of surfaces in my urban surroundings, Czech cubism, visual complexity in simple repeated structures in minerals, plants, and other natural phenomena, and recently poroid patterns in certain bracket-fungi (the undersides of shelf-like mushrooms). … Continue reading Thaddeus Wolfe

Chicago, stevenhaulenbeek.com Haulenbeek’s experiments in ice-cast bronze are a fascinating exploration into what happens when you invent an entirely new process.  What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? American design reflects the nature of what made America in the first place: an eclectic mixture of culture, exploring new territory, and a desire to make it on our own while throwing caution to the wind. I am incredibly excited by the work of my American contemporaries — very likely several, if not all, of those included in this list. It makes me feel proud, inspired, and so happy to be among them. They also make me feel competitive and excited to keep experimenting, taking risks, and creating great work. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? A new relationship with Casati Gallery here in Chicago will open up some new doors for me this year. I am working on a body of Ice Cast Bronze work as well as cast pewter. The first pieces launched last month with side tables, wall mirrors, candle holders, and several vessels. I will also be creating several new pieces commissioned by Casati Gallery to be shown at Design Miami. What inspires your work in general? I have always been inspired by materials and processes. I often begin the making process without any plan for an outcome and then develop plans based on what small discoveries or problems I am confronted with along the way. My “Ice Casting” process started this way. Lately ice has been the material of choice. In the beginning the idea of adding ice to a typically fire-y process like bronze casting was inspiring but as I experiment more and dig deeper into this process, I find that the new set of necessary equipment and the constraints that they create becomes equally as interesting. Lately I’ve found myself dreaming up and sometimes building new tools to compliment new variations within the process. That is when it really feels like you’re on to something.

Minneapolis, ro-lu.com After laying low for a while, landscape designers and furniture darlings Mike Brady and Matt Olson opened three simultaneous exhibitions across the country this fall. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? We get asked this. It can be an interesting question, but I don’t have an answer. I don’t consider myself an American designer. For me it feels like place is where my attention is, and that’s usually the Internet (or nature.) What excites me about the Internet is other people’s work and ideas and the proximity to it. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? We try not to make plans so that we can follow the flashes that happen forward. We just closed three exhibits: Surfaces On Which Your Setting And Sitting Will Be Uncertain with matching clothing by Various Projects at Patrick Parrish Gallery (9/4-10/4), In Waves with composer Alexis Georgopoulos and filmmaker Paul Clipson at Jack Hanley Gallery (9/7-10/5), and Future Tropes at Volume Gallery (9/5-10/5) in Chicago and Design Miami. We are going to do a project at the Los Angeles Book Fair. We have several collabs happening. We are working on three books. Next spring we will be staging a performance piece we’ve been working on for a few years at multiple locations in NYC. What inspires your work in general? So hard to not say everything. I mean, what would anything be without everything else? But, here goes: Knowledge and non-knowledge. Humility and trust. Mistakes and misunderstandings. Waves and reflections. Questions and water. Listening to someone read aloud the same thing I’m reading from a page. Changing my mind over and over.

Brooklyn, mvngmtns.com With its pops of electric blue and its incredible use of mixed materials, Syrette Lew’s debut furniture collection was among the happiest we’ve seen in years.   What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? I would say the best way to describe American design is that it’s heterogeneous. Yes, there are pockets of homogeneity but American culture and society is a polyethnic one so there are many styles, movements, ideas being exchanged and mashed up here which is why I find it hard to make generalizations. America also has the advantage of being a relatively young country so our traditions are not as deeply rooted as compared to some other countries. So, if you’re looking to defy convention then this is where you want to be! Who doesn’t find that exciting? What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? Moving Mountains is excited to announce that we will be joining the Colony showroom this month, which has an outstanding roster: Assembly, Egg Collective, Meg Callahan, and Vonnegut/Kraft to name a few. This will mean that we’ll have a physical presence in Manhattan and select pieces can finally be viewed in person. I’ve also recently worked on some design-related projects like the Sight Unseen pop-up shop build-out as well as proposals for public art pieces, so I’m looking forward to more opportunities outside of furniture design. My biggest plan, however, is to focus on growing the business. It’s been a whirlwind couple of months and I feel like my participation in this year’s ICFF in May was strangely like a debutante ball, though I’ve never been to one. I put on my best dress (well, I wore outfits that color-coordinated with my booth), showed off my assets (furniture), and danced with every prospective suitor that came my way (chit-chatted with press, designers, fabricators, retailers, miscellaneous businesses). As a result, some great and different types of opportunities have presented themselves but it’s too soon to say what will pan out yet — so stay tuned! What inspires your work in general? My instinct is to make things comfortable and functional so I derive a lot of satisfaction from designing something that people will want to use and enjoy using it. The collection I just debuted at this year’s ICFF and Sight Unseen OFFSITE came out of a very practical question. “What kind of furniture would I want in my home?” … Continue reading Moving Mountains

Brooklyn, mishakahn.com With his penchant for offbeat materials and experimental processes, the Minnesota-born RISD grad Kahn reminds us of a latter-day Gaetano Pesce.  What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? America has such a rich aesthetic, but in recent design history I think this has been left by the wayside in lieu of tired European influences. It feels like a lot of designers are turning around and looking more deeply at our own history — both classical American furniture and American folk or craft work. I’m definitely heavily influenced by the kind of making-meets-problem-solving-meets-oddity-energy that goes into a lot of the homebrewed furniture solutions I’ve seen in Minnesota. What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? Right now I really want a nap! I just finished an intense summer, making a lot of work for the NYC Makers biennial at the Museum of Arts & Design, furnishing a whole floor at Bergdorf’s, and lots of other odd projects like shoes for the fashion label Eckhaus Latta. I also made a ton of lamps for the Bjaarne Melgaard installation in the Whitney Biennial this spring. I have a jewelry show in June at Gallery Loupe, which is a great art jewelry space. I’m making a ton of enormous coil pots and working on a lot of fun commissions, and some big things are happening this year. I’m hoping for a blockbuster documentary film with custom squiggly 3D glasses. What inspires your work in general? Basically I’ve been cutting out all the things I don’t enjoy doing in studio and replacing them with new methods I’m coming up with. Glenn Adamson of MAD called something of mine “Instant Craft” in a recent article, and I’m worried that might have made my impatience-turned–craft practice into something too tangible. I’m going on a little road trip with my mom this month to go see a lot of roadside art places that I’ve never seen in person. I’m really interested in people who create their own little worlds in that way, so I’m penciling that in for future inspiration.

Indianapolis, luurdesign.com We first got to know LUUR’s Christopher Stuart when he penned two books on how to DIY other designers’ furniture; we’ve since come to know him as the maker of an increasingly rich and varied portfolio of his own. What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? It’s a revolution! American designers have come together in a relatively short amount of time to place a stake in the ground and make things happen, even when there isn’t a client. As a result, we get to see very raw original works that are purely the voice of the designer. Because so many of us are self-initiating, self-funding, and self-manufacturing, process and material are playing a huge role in the movement. It’s about what we can make on our own or outsource locally. Natural materials and traditional craft techniques are used in combination with modern equipment like CNCs, laser cutters, and 3D printers. To me, this blend of familiar and experimental helps define American design. It’s exciting to be a part of it! What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year? We are currently working hard to launch new products. We have quite a few things in the works ranging from smaller housewares to furniture and lighting. We keep adding more and more equipment to our shop and we are running out of room, so a move might be in our near future! We bounce back and forth between the client side and the self-initiated side. My hope is that these two sides become much closer, allowing each to help the other grow. My goal is that our self-initiated work becomes the example to help steer our client work. When studying furniture design at school, I took a lot of ceramic classes and I loved the immediacy of clay. It’s a great way to offset how labor-intensive woodworking is. So, we just got a kiln and are working on some pieces, exploring different techniques from slip-casting to hand-building, and tossing in some experimental approaches as well. We hope to have some things to show very soon. I’m also very interested in the connection between space and objects. As a result, we are growing our firm to include more architecture, interior, and landscape projects. We love it when we have the ability to tell a bigger and more complete story by designing the space and the … Continue reading LUUR Design