Design Manifestos

At some point in their careers, most artists and designers acknowledge a set of values they find paramount to doing their work well.


Compiled here, by our friends at the Social Design Notes Blog, is 100 years of design manifestos.


A few examples:


"Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry."


"Death to everything stuffy!"

Traveling Benches, part 1

While (partially) stymied on other projects, I decided to begin a set of benches that has been sitting in the back of my mind (and in the back of my shop . . .).  I have two very industrial military metal transportation cases originally used for transporting explosives that are a perfect starting point.

They got me to thinking about the separation that happens within families when military service members are deployed far from home, and what it means to be ‘home’ or ‘away’.  I suppose in a larger sense it also involves when any of us leave our loved ones, either to go get milk down the street or to move cities or countries.

Doorways and entry (or exit) hallways seem to be where these disconnection and re-connections happen often.  We greet folks into our home there and bid them adieu in the same context.  

These benches will be designed for the entryway of a home, specifically as a place for people to pause during the entry and exit of visitors and family members.   Shoes will be taken off and put on here, leftovers handed over, and goodbyes and hellos exchanged.  I’ll use big casters on the benches to emphasize that they are Travelling Benches and that they are involved with the movement of people.

The original paintwork on the cases had lots of interesting stenciled codes and stern instructions (‘CERTIFIED EMPTY’, ‘DO NOT DROP’, etc).  Visually they made the cases seem a little more industrial than I wanted -- perhaps I’d leave them if they weren’t in a home.  I am also repainting the cases a dark grey in place of the military olive green; hopefully this will provoke more of the visual language of ‘travelling suitcase’ than ‘explosive warhead’.

This project has also got me thinking how amazing would it be to design waiting rooms in hospitals.  Where else do we welcome new people into the world and say goodbye to others?

The 'Greenest' Companies in America

The following was submitted as a response to Newsweek's recent article on the '100 Greenest Companies in America':





I was surprised to open the recent issue of Newsweek (Oct 25, 2010) and find Coca-Cola, Raytheon, and McDonald’s listed in the top 100 ‘Greenest Companies in America’ (ranked 54th, 75th, and 79th respectively).  I understand that your ranking system used many experts, numerical metrics, and number-crunching algorithms, but what about common sense?  How is it that a company substantially involved in promoting obesity, a weapons manufacturer, and a fast food chain are ranked so highly?


When promoting environmental stewardship we cannot loose sight of what these companies do, regardless of how they do it.  Otherwise, we could pat ourselves on the back for clubbing baby seals with sustainably harvested  trees.


Sincerely,


Joe Norman

Recent Press

Blue Boat Home has been in a good amount of press recently.

The 2010 City Weekly Arty Awards were a few weeks back, and we got one for ‘Best Recycled Works’.  Keep in mind that we were somewhere in between ‘Best Zombie Podcast’ and ‘Best use of Chocolate’.  Still, it was a fun night and a good chance for the Pallet Bench and Ammo Table to be on display and get some use.

I also started showing in the Sugarhouse Gallery.  Stop by and you can see the Bomb Planter, Crankshaft Table, Tractor Table, and Pallet Table on display.  Also at the Sugarhouse Gallery is the work of Julie Lucas, an incredibly talented and insightful sculptor that also works with found objects and three-dimensional mosaics.  We took a field trip together to find new material and both had a blast trading ideas and thoughts on art.

The Ammo Table is currently showing at the Rio Gallery for the Utah Statewide Mixed Media show, and got a Juror’s Award.  The show will be through Nov.

I was also recently interviewed by Shelterpop and Design Milk’s Jamie Derringer about Zero Waste design.  The article focuses on designers’ attempts to reduce their ecological impact and make fantastic stuff with purpose.

Blue Boat Home is now also listed with the Nine Dot Arts, a corporate art consultancy based out of Denver.

In addition, I’m represented at Gallery MAR in Park City.  Stop by and enjoy their fantastic location and wonderful collection on Main Street.

The Ambiguous Family, Part 6

Prototypes of connection methods and cutting techniques from a donor  truck hood.

Connections and edge treatments are important.  I realized I don’t have enough information or experience with different concepts of alternative families to make a good artistic decision on what method to use to attach the truck hoods to the structure.


I plan to interview and visit a few folks in the next several weeks and hopefully that will help give me some resolution about how to continue.

The Ambiguous Family, part 5

While working on this sculpture over the past week, the issue of gay marriage and the question of biological determinance of homosexuality have been in the local and national news.

Boyd Packard, one of the highest-ranking Mormon church leaders, condemned same-sex marriage and insisted that same-sex attraction is a lifestyle that can be changed through prayer.  Previously, Packer had authored a pamphlet that advocated violence against gay people .  Many have criticized the LDS church’s stance on homosexuality as a contributing factor to Utah’s disproportionate rate of gay teen suicides.

Protest outside the gargantuan LDS office buildings

4500 people were estimated to attend the protest

I traveled to a silent protest orchestrated several days later in response to the LDS position on gay rights.  It struck me how many of the participants were youth from the community; my previous experience attending rallies and protests had relatively few youth participating.

In national news, the Supreme Court is also hearing a case that pits free speech against privacy in a case involving anti-gay protestors at the funeral of an American soldier killed in Iraq.

What, exactly, does all this have to do with a hunk of welded steel taking shape in my shop?  I’ve found that while working on any project I’m making thousands of decisions every minute.  Just a single brush stroke on the finish of a piece involves considering the type of brush, its angle, pressure, length, etc.  So, the decisions that surround actually fabricating sculpture multiply exponentially.

7 ft sculpture structure awaiting its skin of reclaimed pickup truck hoods

One of the larger decisions I’ve facing now deal with methods of attaching the plates of metal from the truck hoods onto the skeletal structure of the piece.  Welding, riveting, bolts – each method imparts a different visual language and emotional impact on the folks looking at the sculpture.  All of the recent news makes me lean toward attaching the plates in a way that stresses the defensive posture non-traditional families under attack have to take to protect themselves and their children.  

The Ambiguous Family, part 4

While continuing work on the Ambiguous Family sculpture, I had NPR on in my shop.  Completely serendipitously, the program was “The End of the Macho Man?”  on Talk of the Nation.  Neal Conan was interviewing Guy Garcia  and Hanna Rosin , two authors who have written about the changing role of men.  The basic consensus was that jobs often held by men are disappearing (manufacturing heading overseas, for example) and jobs traditionally held by women are increasing (nursing and teaching).  This labor shift, along with data showing that more women are enrolled in higher education than men, portends a shift in men’s roles in society.  That shift means that the provider and protector roles that men have traditionally had, and had been modeled by their fathers and grandfathers, will need to be met in other ways now that many men are unemployed or will shift to ‘unmanly’ jobs.

It got me to wondering if the arguments against gay marriage and hostility towards gay couples are fueled by a societal fear of the changing role of men.  It seems that two men having a family would be a very obvious lightning rod for latent angst over job, direction, and gender role loss.  Of course this in no way excuses the blatant bigotry involved with anti-gay proponents, but it does offer a theory of how it got that way.

NPR story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130190244&ft=1&f=5

Guy Garcia’s The Decline of Men:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/books/item_e2dpetSthO3HZcGrWR2ZUK

Hanna Rosin’s The End Of Men:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/