By The Seat Of My Pants

There are times when a design just comes out of my eye. I don’t use the Aristotilian mean or any other mathematical formula. I just fly by the seat of my pants. I look at and maybe draw it to find out what I’m going to do. In this case there are two examples: a large and a small. The small is ¾ as big as the large so that gives me its dimensions.

I decided that octagonal was the way to go here because this was my easel 1.2 version. When I looked at what had been made, it looked too mathematical (that’s how I perceived it) so I cut the three leaf sections out and used the negative space as a design feature. It gave the easel an organic look it didn’t have before.

This all works just fine as long as I give myself time and materials to fool around a bit. I’m reaching into myself and my conscious and unconscious memory base to come up with the design. This process doesn’t work very well for me if I get into a sweat I have to decide that whatever comes out emerges no matter what it might be. If it looks okay to me, I’ll make a few and see if it looks okay to others. In the case of these octagonal easels, the combined color management and the way they are held together with splines gives them a magical quality (that’s what people have said in one way or another).

See Bourgeois Furniture at

Bent River Trading Co. in Capon Bridge, WV,

Berkeley Art Works in Martinsburg, WV,

and Orr’s Farm Market in Arden, WV.