DICTIONARY STAND
22” x 15” x 41”
walnut and pine
designed and fabricated - 1993
The primary premise upon which this design is predicated has to do with the idea that definitions are circular; i.e, we use words to define other words which in turn are further defined by still other words until eventually it becomes necessary to repeat certain terms, thus arriving at circularity in the definition. This idea of circularity is embodied by the use of circular forms (specifically the cone, sphere, and cylinder) and by references to the term pi as it represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The numerical value pi (3.14159...) serves as a sizing ratio in the design of several rectangular elements. For example, the two front leg posts of the table are notched to reveal that the void they enframe is proportioned as three squares plus a fraction (i.e. 3.14159...). The central box has a similar three square plus a fraction motif. This box also demonstrates the fundamental role of social convention as a feature of language by the use of the inch as a measuring convention; the sides have the specific dimensions of 22” x 7”; 22/7 being a simple whole number ratio giving a close approximation to the value of pi. The tenuous nature of the social contract known as language, where meanings are arbitrarily but conventionally associated with specific forms, has a general expression in this work in how the sphere and cylinder appear to be precariously balanced as part of the foundation of language as represented by the dictionary.
The cone, sphere, and cylinder in this design each have the same unit of magnitude in their diameters and in their altitudes (seven inches) which further posits the pi ratio between diameter and circumference in these pieces. According to Archimedes, these three shapes have the respective volumetric ratios of: one to two to three. This fact is implicitly portrayed on the left and right sides of the central box piece by the small groups of one inch cubes placed in rows horizontally aligned with the three profile shapes windowed in the back face of the central supporting box (i.e. the triangle for the cone = 1 volume, the circle for the sphere = 2 volumes, and the square for the cylinder = 3 volumes; Note thealignedwalnut 1" cubes).
A dictionary is an enterprise of symbols (i.e. of things representing other things). Consistent with this propriety, the entire dictionary table, made of salvaged pine, has a material anomaly, the front facade. This is made of expensive walnut incarnating an illustration of the Greek character for pi (π) and thus demonstrating by its frontal position, its greater economic value, and its vignetted material contrast, the primacy of symbols in the significance of a dictionary.
MEMENTO MORI - CRANIAL TREASURY
24" diameter x 30" high
3/4" white pine and 3/4" birch plywood
Hollow Bone - The Presence of the Absence
Memento Mori is a Latin term used during the renaissance referring to images intended to induce recall of our own mortality and the ontological fact our inescapable dissolution. The skull was a typical memento mori with perhaps its most famous example of use in Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors in which he depicted a dissonant anamorphic skull streaking across the floor grid. In Holbein’s opus it carried an additional meaning; i.e., hollow bone, which is the literal denotation of his Germanic name, Holbein. As a memento mori, the skull is a poignant reminder that our brain, that material vicar of our consciousness, is to be meal for worms. Its very hollowness points to the absence of its former contents and subtly utters carpe diem.
The ancient geometers sought to derive a functional correspondence between the transient material forms of the phenomenal world symbolized by the square and the cube, and the eternal transcendent forms of absolute perfection symbolized by the circle and sphere. This skull-like chest has a 15" cube supporting a 24" diameter by 15" high cylinder. Their equal heights and their symmetrical alignment along the vertical axis imply a correspondence of the two forms progressing from the earth connection of the cube to the elevated circle of the heavenly realm. There is no true quadrature here since the square and circular areas are unequal. But the simplicity of the forms and their relationship asserts their essential identities and, to the initiate, causes recall of the alchemical intention of transforming inert matter into sublime spirit.
The Perfection of Lunacy
The cylinder is composed of 28 staves; 28 being the second perfect number after 6. (A perfect number is one whose factors excluding itself sum to that number. In the case of 28 we have the factors of: 1, 2, 4, 7, & 14 summing to 28,) Twenty eight is also one lunation cycle (in days) and the length of one human fertility cycle. Two doors of seven staves each provide for total access to the main inner cavity of the treasury. The lower cube has divisions into eight cubby holes for the placement of various objects such as letters, bottles of wine, etc... and there exists in the base of the cranial chamber a secret compartment, a sanctum sanctorum, for placing small revered artifacts. One metaphorically consistent use of the main cranial cavity is for the storage of bottled spirits. In this way the temple becomes a means of symbolically and phenomenally actualizing Freud’s nirvana principle, the tendency for organic entities to return to their inorganic origins, i.e. to assume a state of complete tension reduction.
The human skull is a very close approximation of a golden section rectangle in the proportioning of its height to width ratio considered from the frontal view. The cranial treasury incorporates a similar value of the golden section ratio in the portion of its upper cylinder half (i.e. a 24" diameter and a 15" height = a ratio of 1.6). The whole treasury chest has an overall ratio of 30:24 = 1.2 thus possessing a disparity from a true correspondence with a whole human skull (ratio of 1.618). Since a notable difference between this chest and a human cranium is the respective flatness of the top of the one and the roundness of the other, it may be inferred that the treasury chest has been truncated thus implying a further openness and connection to the vertical axis mundi and the heavenly realm.
SUSIE'S LECTURN
42" X 26" X 16"
½" fir plywood & yellow pine legs
This was designed for a language arts class and incorporates imagery to stimulate the poetic and metaphorical sensibilities. It also has proportioning related to the golden mean.
19" x 19" x 71" tall (67 x 67 x 174 cm)
natural surfaces of red oak, white pine, and redwood
designed and fabricated - 1985
Progressive Architecture International Furniture Competition, entered - January, 1986
Utility Features: one head is better than none
The valet has a gravity supported seven inch wooden sphere at its crown for accommodating storage of and easy access to a seasonal hat. Eight arms near the top support: coats, other hats, out-going mail, etc. and a hip height cubic piece supports standing umbrellas.
Assumptions: days I knew déjà vu
Originally this object was located along a serial vision path that visually sequenced the image of the Valet de l'entrée with that of the Nebraska State Capitol Building which (in this original situation) could be seen from the front porch of my apartment. The two are as one in their formal gestures.
Intentions: homo erectus, meuble collectus, architectura perfectus
I had in mind to make an object rarefied in its syntax but high in the density of its semantic potential; i.e. something extraordinarily clear and simple in its geometry yet ambiguous and richly complex in its meaning. It is to evoke simultaneously a simile of the Nebraska State Capitol Building and of the human body; and as a synthesis of these it is intended to embody a fitting harmony of architecture, furniture, and the human body.