At first glance the work of furniture maker Tom Shields looks like special effects or a camera trick. However, upon careful inspection, you'll realize that you're viewing the work of a master craftsman. It is with great pleasure that we present the artistry of Tom Shields.
-V. Carr
Managing Director
The Interior Design Resource Agency
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Number of years in the industry: 17
How did you enter the field?
I learned woodworking
apprenticing in the trades. I deliberately made this decision, for I believe
that in order to effectively express yourself with a material you must
intimately understand its nature. I felt the best way to acquire that knowledge
was by working with wood day after day, year after year. After ten years of
building everything from furniture, cabinets, and coffered ceilings to spiral
staircases I finally felt confident that I could build whatever my head could
come up with. I then enrolled in graduate school and received a MFA in Wood/Furniture.
Here I coalesced all my skills with content and concept: I discovered how to
make my work speak. I have become so deeply involved with wood as a substance
that it has become the unconscious core of how I express myself visually. When
I want to communicate an idea I immediately tap into the techniques and forms
that I have spent all this time learning. I make “furniture” not because I am a
furniture-maker, but because these forms have become my reflex vocabulary.
How would you describe
your aesthetic?
I love the marks and damage on the discarded old furniture I
work with. These marks imbue the material with a history much larger than
myself. The wear on the front lower stretcher, and the scratches in the old
varnish show evidence of the lives it literally supported. Despite my
fascination with wear and damage my finished work is crisp. I fabricate and
polish new parts and seamlessly join everything together. My starting point can
be raw and chaotic, but my process and end results are clean, ordered and
functional. I
use the forms and lines of old furniture to create new functional pieces which
evoke the past while nodding to the future.
When did you first discover
you had a natural talent for furniture making?
My
father was a math teacher and my mother was an accountant. Art did not play a
huge role in my life growing up. I did, however, learn from them the importance
of finding beauty in what surrounds us every day. I became enthralled with
things as disparate as a well-drafted comic book, to the fluid motions of an
accomplished athlete. I have made things my entire life, and studied painting
in college, but I finally found my true passion for making the first day I
apprenticed with a woodworker. I picked up a hand-saw and a chisel and have not
stopped, or felt any desire to work with any other material since.
Where do you find inspiration?
Where do you find inspiration?
My favorite place to look for visual inspiration is thrift
and antique shops. The ways they stack and store piles of old furniture
fascinates me. The random connections in a stack of chairs, the negative spaces
created when chairs are hung on walls and overlapped: The smells, colors and
patinas in these spaces are so rich. I also enjoy looking at how things break
down and decay. The photographer Rosamond Purcell once explained her
fascination with wear and decay to me, and her words ring so true. If you look
at ten typewriters together in a store each one looks exactly the same: leave
them outside in the elements for a year and each one becomes a unique object.
Conceptually my work addresses interpersonal relationships, so I also find
inspiration through observing and analyzing peoples interactions. My chair
compositions reflect and contemplate how we as people organize our
relationships, resolve conflicts, and grow closer to and sup!
port one another.
port one another.
What do you enjoy most
about being an artist?
Being an artist allows me to fulfill two of my most basic
needs. To think, and to make. If I leave work at the end of the day and there
is not some physical representation of what happened I feel useless. If I leave
work and all I have done is use my body and my hands, and not challenged myself
mentally I feel frustrated. I decided to make art because it’s the only
lifestyle that constantly allows me to fulfill both of these needs. I can read
and think about environmental issues, dwell on my relationships with friends,
ponder the lifecycle of a plant, and churn it all around while I am making an
object which will have a physical presence. Art allows me to embody abstract
ideas into physical objects. Recently I have realized that art also allows me
to experience and interact with other people’s interests and aesthetics as
well. Though commissions I am able to add another persons concerns and ideas to
the list churning ar
und in my head, and create an object, which reflects them as well as me.
Accolades, Awards &
Accomplishments:
Shown extensively in galleries throughout United States.
Commission for D’Amour Museum of Fine Art - Springfield MA – Gallery seating.
Commission for North Carolina Museum of Art – Raleigh NC - Sculpture Park.
Permanent Collection – Gregg Museum of Art and Design – Raleigh NC
Resident Artist - Penland School of Crafts – Penland NC
Published – Lark Books – 500 Cabinets.
Panelist – Fuller Craft Museum – “C Word Road Show”
Commission for D’Amour Museum of Fine Art - Springfield MA – Gallery seating.
Commission for North Carolina Museum of Art – Raleigh NC - Sculpture Park.
Permanent Collection – Gregg Museum of Art and Design – Raleigh NC
Resident Artist - Penland School of Crafts – Penland NC
Published – Lark Books – 500 Cabinets.
Panelist – Fuller Craft Museum – “C Word Road Show”
For more information on artist and furniture maker Tom Shields, visit his website:
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Wonderful. I only wish I could buy things from craftsmen/artists like Tom.
ReplyDeleteI'm reduced to garage sale furniture. :(
This comment has been removed by the author.
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