I first saw this piece by Jason Hernandez at ShowPDX 2008 thinking ” I HAVE to meet this guy” and grabbed his business card.  The woodworking skill and design was clearly at another level.

I later found out this piece below won the award for best furniture of the year in Portland Spaces Magazine.  He described to me that the design is an intentional departure from his regular aesthetic which is heavily influenced by his formal woodworking schooling at College of the Redwoods.  Im drawn to the “Jetsens” like forms.  Make sure you click on this link to go to a great writeup on his piece.

He was nice enough to give us a tour of his shop today.  I love seeing people’s workspaces.  I like checking out their organization, little models and prototypes they have lying around, and of course- geek out on powertools. Jason told us about new projects hes working on, some woodworking techniques, and the chaboo he has started.

Jason Hernandez Shop Visit from Ken Tomita on Vimeo.
Ive been nice and havent embarrassed Jason in this blog post yet but that wouldnt be fair to all the other artists Ive ripped on so Im going to embarrass him by featuring him in the first VIDEO on this blog.  YAY!

Chaboo by Jason hernandez from Ken Tomita on Vimeo.
Jasons chaboo is made of Ash which will be stained black. There will be an aluminum feature as well that will contrast nicely with the black. Cant wait to see it!

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!