Designing and Doing

I think a lot about the nature of the work that I do. Namely, the rather large gap between the aspects of my work that produce income and the much larger proportion of tasks that don’t. What it comes down to in my mind is designing vs doing. As a designer, I’m prolific and most of the time the ideas come freely. Not all of them are good and even the good ones require refinement, but the process of designing furniture for me is a bountiful one. As a craftsperson, I’m often tedious and miserable. I spend long hours learning skills and techniques that I will probably never be able to do as well as I want to when it counts. I am haunted by the fear that at any moment I’ll realize a terrible mistake I made days ago and it’ll be too late to correct. And the real kicker is, I’m fairly certain almost none of it will be noticed by the client.

Much of the aforementioned thinking is done while I’m building, particularly when I’m working on something that I thought would take 2 hours but ends up taking 2 days. If someone asks me what I do at a dinner or something, I usually say that I’m a designer, but the reality is that I spend a much greater amount of my time as a furniture builder than designer. And yet, I publicly identify as a designer because I know that design is what pays the bills. Which brings me back to that initial question of what is the nature of my work. Is it what I’m paid to do or is it what I spend my time doing?

Unfortunately for me, I don’t think one can exist without the other. Despite knowing better, I’m drawn to craft in a seemingly inescapable way. In my other career as a fashion designer, I began by learning to sew and assemble garments. I don’t know why but it felt strange to me to design something without knowing how to put it together. I know there are a lot of designers who have gone their entire careers without sitting at a sewing machine or picking up a chisel, and I’m fairly certain they’re all the better for it. But it’s never been my path. I need to suffer through the doing in order to feel that I’ve earned the end result.

On my good days, I can conjure a noble image out of that relationship. I can tell myself that furniture that comes from the hands of the person who designed it has a distinct resonance. And that the labor of building something by hand, especially in an increasingly automated and optimized world, is intimate, and beautiful, and deeply human. And I can believe that - I do believe that actually, deep down. But I also know that this is a romantic lens to view one’s own work through, and furthermore, is only true if everyone believes it’s true. This feels obvious to say but the work is only meaningful if you find meaning in it.

On the days where I’ve blown past the deadline fiddling with a tiny detail, or remaking a chair leg because at the last minute I cut it too short, I long for the disconnect between designing and doing. “Doing” in the world of furniture is known as fabrication — a word that to me is most significant for its lack of evocation. It’s cold, and precise, and unromantic, but accurately conveys the building portion as something separate from the design process. First you design, then you have someone else fabricate.

The path I’ve chosen has no such distinction. Designing and fabricating are largely simultaneous acts. I rarely begin a project with a full plan mapped out (much to the dismay of some clients I’m sure), choosing instead to give myself a little space to find the piece. Of course, there are specs to hit and an aesthetic standard to meet, but in my experience the truly ecstatic design moments happen spontaneously. My best ideas occur at the tips of my fingers and not at my desk— a fact I view as a defect and not a feature of my brain.

The limitations of this way of working are easy to spot. The bottleneck is me, both mentally and physically. I can draw 10 coffee tables in a couple of hours but to build one will take me a week or two. This is not an efficient use of one’s time if they make their money as a designer. But for me it’s a necessity. Every one of those 10 coffee tables I choose to build will be better for having my hands on them, and I know that’s true. The physical act is critical to the design.

So we return at last to the question about the nature of my work. I’m a designer. I build furniture in service to the design, but everything about the way I design is influenced by my experience building furniture. Nothing is abstract. The result of which, I hope, is an incredibly direct line from me to the piece, and then eventually to its owner. It’s an honest reflection of all of my abilities and limitations, and to create that and send it out into the world is a frightening and beautiful experience, but that’s the nature of the work.