I had the chance to go to the closing reception for my friend, furniture designer David Laubenthal’s art show at OPSIS/920 Gallery today.  Dave and I share a similarity in that we are furniture designers who have all kinds of creative outlets besides furniture.  Ive seen his fun work with the Portland Pallet Project but Ive never seen his fine art in person.  I was interested to see how his creative energies translate into painting.

In his words:

For the show at the 920 gallery at Opsis, I created a series of paintings that refer to traditional architectural rendering techniques of the past. Graphite pencils and colored pencils were added to my process and traditional drawing tools such as compasses, drawing templates, t-squares among others were employed in the layout and execution of the work. For the color palette I referred to the color theories favored by the Bauhaus school. In my studio, I strive to blur the lines between art and design, both in my furniture work as well as my artwork, and this series has become an extension of that theme.

I was impressed at how well refined his technique and concept were.  Also, the scale of his work was quite large and the series very appropriate for the space.  His paintings had depth and a unique quality from using tools for sculpture rather than a brush.  It is inspiring to see a fellow designer developed as a visual artist.  Makes me think that I need to work harder at my fine art and put in the time and effort required for my creative soul to mature on the visual art side.  Its important to me to be well rounded and constantly create beyond the design work that I do.  I feel that fine art and design are not separate but rather inter-related outlets for our creative energies that feed off of each other.  Great inspiration and encouragement.

Dave was honored last night as a recipient of the Portland Spaces Magazine ROOT award for Rising Stars.  Awesome.  Congrats Dave!

My friend Cameron Davis went from leading scorer on the RISD basketball team to superstar illustrator/character developer for the guitar hero video game franchise in the blink of an eye.  Im lucky to have him onboard for Project Chaboo.  I thought all Cameron could do was shoot 3s.  I was wrong… dead wrong.  Handing out the assists now!

I met with a silkscreening expert today to try and figure out how to print illustrations directly onto Chaboos.  Im still working out the process on how that will actually happen and what limitations I will have to place on artists who will not be directly working onto the material.

It will be good to figure this out so we can branch out and do a limited edition line of screenprinted graphics rather than have everything be hand drawn.

Attention artists

We are getting professional photos taken of our chaboos!  Anna Campbell will be taking photographs of the customized chaboos on December 8.  Anna does some of my local photography for Tomita Designs and she will do an excellent job of photographing your creations!

photograph by Anna Campbell

Please get your pieces done by this date for photos.   This project will be ongoing and the local show will be at a much later date so if you cant make round one you can still participate.  The photography will not be nearly as good when Im taking the pictures though…. trust me.

My vision for the website is to have a matrix of images on the main page displaying the whole series.  You click on one and it zooms up with a short description and bio of the artist.  Cant wait to line up all them Chaboos.  yeehaw!

The project has gained tremendous momentum the last couple weeks.  Ive convinced a handful of designers who were in ShowPDX2008 to join in on the fun. Unlike the painters/illustrators who are “decorating” a completed chaboo, many of these designers will design/fabricate their own Chaboos from scratch.  Ive encouraged the designers to freely interpret the design as they wish. Id like the project to be an opportunity for artists unique voices to be heard with a minimum of structure.  Their pieces only need to follow the design enough that a series is created.  I am working closely with some of the designers and others will work completely independently.

These designers are highly skilled in specific mediums such as metal, glass, concrete, wood, and felt.  Im excited to see how these different materials can be integrated into Chaboo!

Im looking for more designers for this project.  Send people my way if they would be interested!

In alphabetical order with preliminary chaboo ideas:

Scott Bord- Manual Design Works

formed concrete

David Bertman- David Bertman Designs

edging with metal and some kind of webbing

Eric Day

Matt Deschler- Formed Objects

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My friend Alisha Wessler has joined in on Project Chaboo.  Im so glad to have her- she is one of my favorite artists. I helped her out a while back on a 24drawings by 24artists in 24hours project.  I gave her a bunch of small bamboo scraps which she illustrated on.  Her illustrations work really well with the bamboo so its only natural that she do a couple chaboos!