Observations from the Woodshop

Inspiration

I have several new designs that are all part of my “Meander” series.  [www.probstfurniture.com].  They are presently on display at a gallery in Charleston, WV [www.mcjunkingallery.com]. I gave a talk there the other night on my inspirations, which I thought might be worth sharing here.  One thing that I have known for a long time is that I never wanted to do reproductions of some one else’s work.  For example, I had a friend in college who was studying classical music, and I never could understand wanting to do that. I mean, it’s been done. To me, the creative aspect of what I do is the most rewarding. Early in my career I had a tough time finding my voice. Some of my very early pieces seemed like an attempt at just being different. Then, for a number of years I would describe my work as being Shaker influenced, or Mission influenced. They were my interpretations of a style, but they were definitely recognizable as being from one period or another. Now when people ask me to describe my furniture it has become much tougher , as I believe I have come up with a look that is unique to me.
      That brings me to the inspiration for my current line.  I was asked to make a piece for a local art show, the theme of which was “Kind Of Blue”. I had just finished a book entitled “Blue Highway” by William Least Heat Moon, that I had really enjoyed tremendously. It’s about traveling the US by the secondary highways and staying off the interstates, something near and dear to my heart. I came up with this small sculpture which was a sort of a stylelized mountain form in mahogany with a mountain stream in blue glass. So I’m looking at this piece after it’s done, and I start to think that here’s inspiration for a piece of furniture.  The starting point being  a trapezoidal piece of wood sawed in two in an “S” curve and connected back together, in the sculpture’s case by a piece of glass, and in the case of a piece of furniture, by a contrasting piece of wood. The first piece I did was in walnut and ebonized cherry. I rather like this piece, as one of my goals in designing furniture has been to attempt to strip a piece down to it’s barest essentials.  To recap, so far in this process we have the book, the sculpture, and now, one small table.  At this point, it didn’t seem that I could go alot further with this one trapezoidal base piece, but I started thinking that by using two of them connected in different ways I potentially had the basis for an entire line of furniture. The next pieces I designed were the console tables, and they provided the visual springboard for the next pieces which were the case pieces, such as the chest of drawers. On it goes, and as of today there are a dozen pieces and counting that are part of this new collection, and all of it started with a book and a small sculpture.
          On that note, I leave you with my thought for the day. Creativity is contingent upon recognizing inspiration. Sometimes the muse is right there in front of you and you just don’t here her calling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: Blue Highway, creativity, furniture making, Inspiration, Mission style, S Curve, Shaker style, woodworking