I love lamp?

Here are my favorite lamps that I designed that were introduced last month at the High Point Market. These fellows are all "lifestyle contemporary", I'd say. You know, for the modern person who doesn't want their friends to think they are too weird...


QUADRATIC

DECA

PLANAR

The 2-light DECA table lamp is my favorite. But, I do take great pride in the incredibly small boxes that both QUADRATIC lamps fit in. You'll notice that there are some large-ish finials at the connection points of PLANAR... those got revised, but I don't have updated images.

Cat Pumpkin!

I carved a cat pumpkin. But is it Zero or Pepper? Judging by the vampire teeth, I'm guessing Zero.

Cactus cats

I just can't do anything without some cat help. I often have to protect freshly spray-painted objects from the wrath of kitty cat tails. I finished this cactus today, and he is free from tail-harm and for SALE!

new woodcut- cacti and a bike

I just finished a new woodcut. I love cacti and bikes.
\

plywood, how i miss you...

Since moving to Jacksonville, I haven't had quite the woodworking facilities that I'm accustomed to. I've been making do with a few trips to SCAD's furniture shop and to my parents' house... but I just can't produce the volume that I used to, mainly because now I have a full time job.

So, I decided to take up a new (old) hobby: pottery! I loved sculpture and pottery so much in highschool that my dad built me a pottery wheel, but I haven't even seen it in years. Anyway, here I am with some fresh bowls:


I am certainly enjoying clay again, but I could never leave my favorite material; plywood. Especially not after the awesome writeup that I got on Babygadget!

A little excerpt:
"Looking to add a little 3-D design to your nursery decor? Consider these beautiful sculptures by Sara Schalliol. An industrial designer by trade, this Southern girl spends her evenings working on structural gems for you and me. With their minimal lines and graceful forms, Sara’s plywood creations are contemporary yet somehow soothing - perfect for modern Moms and babes (and Dads!). The orange bird would be great hanging over a crib or changing table. And the dino? He'd be fab just about anywhere. If you're not as obsessed with orange and natural as I am, Sara's sculptures do come in many other colors. All her work ships flat and is easy to assemble."

It certainly made my day, especially since it seems to have generated a lot of interest and a few sales for my birds!

Heavy with heart

Kspell sent me this photo of my trees displaying her handmade jewelry. Hooray!

Tree put to good use!

Etsy seller OpalLight used one of my very first trees as a display at a craft show. My old tree-friend got to show off some pretty awesome glasswork:

I vote for a western village next time with some cacti! Ah ha!

Oriented Strand BRACELETS!

My newest creations:

OSB, or Oriented Strand Board has long been thought of as an ugly construction material not suitable for applications of which the desired affect is beauty... until now! Take that, society!

Funny how sometimes the cheapest materials can look the best. Oh yeah, did I mention that I got this OSB out of a trashcan?

contrast and compare

My newest woodcut! I love the addition of painting with woodcuts. I also like how this one looks really dirty, even though it was unintentional.

If it ain't flat, don't pack it!

After getting my new job and preparing to move, I realized that I wanted/needed (who really needs any kind of table, though?) a new coffee table. So I whipped this one up real quick. I was totally NOT IMPRESSED with the Maple plywood I bought. I suppose I will forever be a Birch girl. Anyway, it was inspired by a $800 (I think) table I saw somewhere or other. I think I may adorn it's top with Blik wall decals.

gifts from god

Inspired by the old saying "Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy"; are products that make our lives easier or "better" actually gifts from god? Is a less labor-intensive life filled with material objects better than one without?

Where do products come from, what are they made of, and why do some of them even exist? These are questions that may never cross the mind of the average American, so these consumer goods might as well be sent down from god, right?

freshly painted birds

I just finished painting some of my larger (22" wingspan) birds. Now I'm working on some for myself... strangely enough, I don't have any of my own trees or birds for keeps, all that I have is my Etsy inventory.

thumbnails

It's been a while since I updated this, because I have been busy going on interviews and an amazing trip to Alaska. I've accepted an offer so my handmaking/Etsy/starving artist life is about to change. But anyway, here are some recent sketches... they aren't anything special, but this is the typical way I begin developing ideas

tree growth & Ayn Rand

I finished these trees in the last few days. This is the first mustard yellow tree ever, but I quite like it. These burnt orange cacti sell pretty well, for some reason or other. Lots of times I feel like I'm just remaking designs over and over. But, it seems a little silly to work on new things when I don't have my original items in stock, so maybe in a few days I can start on something new.

I am totally obsessed with Ayn Rand, and here is a quote by her that I think most creative folks, or at least I, can relate to:

"There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere."

handbook to handmade - volume 4

"the handbook to handmade" is a 80 page monthly volume of 35 ETSY artists and their shops...this is a promotional tool that is used to help promote artists and etsy. the first volume was a success, with a great mix of artists from 36 different cities from around the world.

I'm going to be in the 4th volume!

Timothy Adam puts out The Handbook to Handmade. Visit the blog for more information!

(shameless) self-promotion

I'm having these postcards printed because some of my jewelry displays are going to be at the Philadelphia Buyer's Market of American Craft. A few other SCAD students and I are going to be exhibiting under the name Creative Collective.

products from the sky

products from the sky 18" x 18"

I'm pretty pleased with it. I love working at this larger scale, but I feel like I'm going through paper like crazy. As I explained in my last post, the scene is based on a general thought I had. But, the resulting print just looks so surreal, almost like all elements were chosen at random. I think the viewer would maybe assume the meaning has something to do with consumption or maybe polution, but not quite my original inspiration for it... which is totally fine by me.

Anyway, you (whoever you are) should click on the image and view it larger so you can see some of the detail.

it's raining consumer goods

I've been working on a new woodcut. After studying industrial design in school, I've always been really intrigued by mass production. I find all the different means of production really interesting. I'm also continually amused by telling people that I'm an industrial designer, and the majority of them saying "Oh, so you design... industries?" I feel that the average person doesn't really know or care how the products they buy are made, what they're made of, or where they came from.

I've heard "money doesn't grow on trees" said to people who don't really have a concept of money's value... So I sort of ran with that idea and decided to create a woodcut that addresses this fact of many products being these mystical (magical?) sort of objects because their histories, materials, origins are mostly unknown. They might as well fall from the sky, really. So, here we've got factories creating smoke, which creates clouds, and various products rain down from the sky. The products are sort of a random hodge podge, but not totally. I feel like people who have a knowledge of industrial design but are not themselves designers say "Oh, so you make toasters and blenders and stuff?" So I thought I should throw in some of these cliches as well.

It's hard to tell whats going on in this woodcut right now, since a lot more needs to be done and I have wood chips covering a lot of it. So far with woodcuts, I've found that after I do quite a bit of cutting, it helps me to do a little test-ink-run to see how everything is working together.. So you're seeing this already partially inked, hence the blackness.

wood is good

I finished my 4th woodcut today and finished the first bracelet I've made in a long time.

I haven't named this one yet, which is an extreme rarity for me. Not to brag, but I have been told that I should be a professional namer. Anyway, this one went pretty quickly and I finally feel like I'm getting the hang of woodcuts. I think my next one might be a big, square one, but we'll see.



I had said that I wasn't going to make bracelets anymore... but they sell much faster than anything else I make... so, what can you do? Maybe you should buy it.

love factory

New woodcut!

finding meaning through matter

I wrote this for a project that my good buddy Jamie and I did together a few months ago.

Here goes:

FINDING MEANING THROUGH MATTER

Through increased interaction, increased control, memory stimulation, and sensory engagement, more meaningful experiences with products can be facilitated.


Understanding human motivations

Psychologist Abraham Maslow synthesized his theory of human motivation into a Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is usually represented as a pyramid consisting of five levels. The bottom level incorporating basic physiological needs such as food and water, the second concerning safety needs, the third involving love and belonging, the fourth self esteem, and the fifth self-actualization. After each step of needs is met, you move further up in the pyramid, eventually reaching self-actualization, which involves an understanding and acceptance of one’s self.

In the developed world, our physiological needs, such as food and water, and safety needs, such as shelter and security, have been met. Therefore, consumers are motivated by social, egotistical, and self-actualizing needs. Perhaps because of the ease at which our basic needs have been met, we expect our social, egotistical, and self-actualization needs to be fulfilled with equal ease. But, maybe because of the lack of actual physical labor we perform in order to accomplish our basic need requirements, it has become even more difficult for us to reach self-actualization. We have felt no sense of accomplishment from our water, food, and shelter acquisitions, and we need that positive feedback in order to feel good about ourselves.

No longer do we exhaust ourselves working the land to provide ourselves not only with food, but a means of income. We never get a chance to experience the sense of achievement that physical labor brings. So, we look for this fulfillment elsewhere; often through consumption. But, the objects we turn to for this emotional support were not designed to be our mentors. Jonathan Chapman agrees, “consumers are unable to develop and sustain attachments with objects lacking such characteristics as the objects do not posses the diversity and pluralism of character required to healthily sustain enquiry.”

We are relying on products for more than they were originally designed for, and they are failing horribly. Examples of these failed relationships are evident in landfills everywhere. Perfectly functional products topple out of dumpsters with no crime but not engaging us on an emotional level. Chapman explains, “we are consumers of meaning and not matter; it could be argued that material objects simply provide a tangible means through which these connotations may be signified to the user. We transfer resources into products that – in a sense – provide us with existential mirrors, allowing us to view and experience our dreams and desires in real time.” We purchased these goods with hopes of feeling a sense of fulfillment or a greater sense of self, and when this gratification did not occur, the goods were promptly disposed of. Times are changing, our needs are changing, and therefore products must also change.

How can we facilitate more meaningful relationships between users and products?

Through increased interaction, increased control, memory stimulation, and sensory engagement, more meaningful experiences with products can be facilitated.

Increasing interaction – making the user do work

First, through increased interaction, users will not only appreciate the product more, but will develop a more significant relationship with it. Perhaps just more interaction won’t solve the problem either, maybe more physical labor needs to occur also? When tasks can be accomplished with incredible ease and continually happen faster than before, are we benefiting or suffering? We seem to think that our lives will be made better and simpler if we purchase the new toaster that butters our bread, cooks our eggs, and fries our bacon. But, does it pat us on the back, too? Because no longer do we feel that sense of accomplishment after preparing a meal for ourselves, that feeling is gone. We have traded that feeling for the supposed benefits of less time and less work.

Jonathan Chapman explains that we have become “a passive audience who simply presses go, then stands back to watch as anonymous black boxes perform their magic.” Our interaction with these “push and go” products is extremely limited and as a result, unfulfilling. Products such as these, which allow us to accomplish almost anything quickly and easily with just a press of a button, exist because we think we don’t have time to perform these tasks on our own. How can we give the user the pride of accomplishing a physical task?

Increasing control : letting the user be the designer

Daniel Gilbert, the author of Stumbling Upon Happiness, believes that “…human beings come into the world with a passion for control, they go out of the world the same way, and research suggests that if they lose their ability to control things at any point between their entrance and their exit, they become unhappy, helpless, hopeless, and depressed. And occasionally, dead." With this, we brought up the fact that a lot of people deny any ability to be creative, but inherently have a need for control. But humans are naturally creative beings. Creativity can be found in the way one arranges their groceries, the way one cooks a meal, and many other minor everyday experiences.

Chapman also says "Our culture tends to convince us that, mostly, we're not good enough to be creative." "Creative" can be an intimidating word for people who claim to lack "creativity". So, with that said, how can we design something that gives the user options and the freedom to be subconsciously creative? The user must be given enough room to be creative, but not enough room to make a mistake, because if a mistake is made, a negative connotation will be associated with the experience, and therefore, the product.

When the design is left “unfinished” to an extent, the user can, if desired, play a role in the design process. This is best accomplished with finishing touches, as users may not want to undertake a large, daunting task. Allowing the user to make the final design decisions may ensure a longer life for the product. It is difficult to throw away products with personal touches, let alone products that you personalized yourself. Theoretically, the product should exemplify the user remarkably well since the user is the final designer.

Triggering memory : new and old

Products that somehow engage our memory seem to work their way into our souls. The bonds formed with products that we have had numerous experiences with cannot be replaced. Everyone has a hard time giving up their teddy bear, baseball mitt, or first blanket. These objects have lived with us in a sense, and throwing them away is almost like throwing a part of ourselves away. As designers, we can only design experiences with products that are memorable; the user’s mind must do the rest.

When the user can learn through interaction with the product and develop skill, not only are memories created, emotional bonds are born. New memories become old memories and products grow with the user. The act of learning to use a product is the first memory with it, and if successful, a positive reminder of the beginning of a healthy relationship.

Triggering past memories through familiar forms of new products can produce deep emotional connections that can be built upon through time. But, can we assume through age, gender, location, or even income that certain forms will trigger memories, and more importantly, trigger positive, meaningful ones? Past experiences are extremely diverse and tricky to speculate, so perhaps the emotional appeal of a product should not rely entirely on triggering a past memory, for the design fails if incorrect assumptions are made.

The experience of using the product must be memorable if it is to be successful, but the user must be kept from becoming bored. "...if a product relinquishes all meaning in a single fleeting glance - experientially - consumers have nowhere left to go. By designing products to patiently deliver a series of future discoveries and revelatory happenings, the life of an object is dramatically increased as users remain captivated in anticipation of the next event," states Jonathan Chapman. But, surprises cannot be too unexpected. The nature of a surprise is an element of the unknown, but if too much of a particular design is left unknown, the user simply will not understand. A balance must be found between usability and subtle surprises are the safest.

Senses : emotion and memory attachment points?

Psychological Theorist William James believes that, “we appreciate a place not just by its impact on our visual cortex but by the way in which it sounds, it feels and smells. Some of these sensual experiences elide, for instance our full understanding of wood is often achieved by a perception of its smell, its texture (which can be appreciated by both looking and feeling) and by the way in which it modulates the acoustics of the space.” Our senses are always engaged, but not often does a single product command all of our senses. While using a product that has no smell, the environment we occupy commands our olfactory sense. The overall experience of using a product can be transformed into a more memorable and meaningful event if more of our senses are employed.

It is impossible to just look at a product. While looking, we involuntarily smell, hear, remember, and even observe taste. All of these sensations tie into the overall experience of perceiving a product and act as memory markers. The senses are attachment points for memory and emotion. The more senses that are engaged, the more likely the product will be remembered.

The notions of increasing interaction, increasing control, and stimulating memory all tie into sensory engagement. It is impossible not to increase sensory engagement when attempting to enhance experience.



Bibliography

Chapman, Jonathan. Emotionally Durable Design Earthscan, London, 2005.

Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling Upon Happiness Knopf, New York, 2006.

Malnar, Joy Monice and Vodvarka, Frank. Sensory Design University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2004.

cacti growth

A few days ago we CNCed some new cacti.


CNCing these really doesn't save me as much time as I would like. I feel like I'm sanding my life away!
Here are some freshly painted CACTI:



For SALE!

first woodcut

I've been thinking about making a woodcut for a long time, but just started on one before Christmas. I found this paragraph in the Anderson Ranch Art Center workshop catalog that embodies everything that I find intriguing about woodcuts:

"Why explore the woodcut print today? Can such a anachronistic medium still have relevance? Is it the energy, the honest hand work, the raw physicality and interaction with once-living material? The oldest form of printing, the woodcut has a readily understood mark and a direct process that continues to intrigue makers and impact viewers."






The print is about 1' by 2.5'... My initial meaning behind the cut sort of got lost in the process, which is strange because usually the opposite happens to me. Anyway, my next one is already in the works and will be the same size. I'm really excited about it... Its going to be my reaction to industry/progress/work/etc.

birds and dinosaurs

I finally took some better pictures of my dinosaurs.



And, I finished the big bird I've been working on. 22 inch wing span, oh yeah!


With these birds and dinosaurs, I feel more like I'm making sculpture than design. I think I've been trained not to make objects that don't preform a function, but I've always found value in things that somehow made me feel good, even if this wasn't necessarily a function they were meant to preform. So, the sole function of these objects is mood improvement? Eh?