Crafty types

UALR’s applied design program built on function

Assistant professor Mia Hall, a furniture maker, is the head of the applied design department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Assistant professor Mia Hall, a furniture maker, is the head of the applied design department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

The tiny scale model illustrating college student Morgan Hill’s final project contains a wing-back chair with bent metal legs and a blue cushion. Cute and a little funky, it gives you an idea of the 26-year-old’s furniture design aesthetic. But what’s that thing that looks like a squirrel holding a pillow?

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Morgan Hill’s final project in her furniture making class is a wing-back chair with a taxidermist-provided fox as an ottoman. Hill is part of the applied design program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

“That’s actually a fox,” Hill says.

That explains why there’s a fox - a real one stuffed by taxidermist - that looks ready to walk off a shelf in Hill’s work area in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s applied design program workshop.

“The chair is going to have a cushion out of this,” Hill says, holding up a piece of blue velvet. “Then I’m going to make another cushion from this fabric and bolt it on top of the fox for the ottoman.”

She has just begun making the chair by shaping a thin piece of wood into a semi-circle from which she’ll cut the wing back and arms. When the chair is completed, it will be fully functional, suitable for sitting and kicking back, feet propped on the ottoman. But, Hill acknowledges, “a normal person probably wouldn’t have an ottoman with a fox.” She explains that she includes stuffed wildlife in her work as an artistic commentary about modern society’s relationship with the natural world.

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Christian Peter works on his chair project, which utilizes steel rods and used barn wood.

Incorporating animals bought from a taxidermist into her creations is Hill’s twist on the co-mingling of conceptual and functional furniture design she’s learning while earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with an emphasis on applied design at UALR. While other art degree “tracks” at the university highlight fine or studio art and art education, applied design focuses on a triad of furniture design, metals and ceramics. The program elevates traditional American crafts to the same level of study and preservation as those of the finer arts such as painting, drawing and sculpting. Applied design classes also offer students a chance to learn hand craft - how to work with their hands, eyes and minds to create an object that can be used in an everyday environment.

In a “hardcore” applied design program, all student projects would be strictly functional, says assistant professor Mia Hall, who teaches classes in furniture design and construction as well as contemporary crafts such as fabric painting. “We’re more middle of the road.” For example, if a student wants to build furniture that’s more conceptual or abstract - Hill’s fox ottoman, for example - then he can. But whether a chair, an ottoman, a table or cabinet, any piece of furniture must be structurally sound.

Likewise, jewelry created in metalsmithing classes isn’t just artistic, but made to be worn. A bowl shaped and fired in ceramics class is made to hold something. In applied design, everything should be usable. Function informs form.

UALR’s applied design program is unique among Arkansas’ college fine arts programs - not so much in its approach, but simply because of its existence. Win Bruhl, chairman of the university’s art department, says the idea for the program arose 15 years ago after an art department study revealed that most universities in the south-central region of the United States were offering essentially the same art instruction and coursework. Bruhl and his colleagues then decided UALR would set itself apart by developing a program in applied design to focus on preserving traditional crafts like blacksmithing and furniture-making, which seemed a natural in a state with a strong craft heritage.

So in 2006, he says, furniture design and blacksmithing were added to the university’s existing ceramics program to create applied design. The program, accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, is taught in an 18,000-squarefoot space in what used to be a strip mall on the northeast corner of Asher and University avenues.

The dry, woody scent of sawdust permeates the spacious workroom where students learn principles and techniques for furniture construction. Other areas of the facility are reserved for jewelry and metalsmithing classes in which students learn to light a coal fire, connect flat and shaped pieces of metal, and produce surface treatments such as enameling.More space contains tables and potter’s wheels for shaping and throwing clay, and a kiln for firing and finishing their creations.

In one room, looms for weaving cloth are crowded in a corner, idle because the university hasn’t been able to find a fiber arts teacher with the requisite master of fine arts degree.

Every class in applied design exposes students to craft history and contemporary techniques, plus requires them to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills to put what they’ve learned into practice, Hall says. Students also learn basic skills they may not have fully developed in earlier educational experiences. “I see kids all the time who come into my workshop who can’t read a ruler and can’t do the math. To build a piece of furniture takes a lot of math, but people who can’t do math on paper can learn it in wood shop - it’s applied learning.”

But even though applied design is part of the art department, there’s no requirement that enrollees be artists or have any kind of art background. They also don’t need any experience in their chosen areas of study. Students who want to learn furniture making may never have picked up a hammer. Blacksmith students may never have touched an anvil or built a fire. For each craft, there are classes introducing its history, tools and techniques that provide the foundation for later classes in which students design and construct furniture and more.

Currently, there are about 20 students seeking BFAs in applied design, but there are other students who aren’t seeking degrees but taking classes as electives or are there for “personal enrichment,” Hall says.

Those there for enrichment are typically senior citizens taking advantage of an Arkansas law waiving tuition at state colleges and universities for people 60 and older. Among them is 63-year-old Deitra Blackwell, a retired musician and choir director, who is learning to make necklaces and earrings from metal. She’s wearing examples of her work, a necklace and earrings with pendants shaped like ginkgo leaves.

“The whole art world is new to me,” Blackwell says, adding that she and her fellow students of all ages “have all made things way beyond what we thought our abilities are. One of the real pluses of this program is how encouraging the teachers are. They expect good craftsmanship, but they’re always encouraging.”

While Blackwell is using her newly developed skills to embark on a second career as a jewelry-maker, most students won’t be taking their applied design learning to a career level - at least not in the sense that they’ll be furniture makers or blacksmiths.

“My ultimate goal is to get a job and put food on the table for my family,” says Christian Peter, 26, who’s completing his BFA degree this semester. Peter’s final project - the applied design equivalent of a senior thesis - is two chairs, a side table and a lamp he’s making from steel rods and strips of reclaimed barn wood. He hopes to translate his furniture construction skills into a job designing and building educational displays and exhibits for a college or similar institution.

Hall says Peter is typical of the program’s degree candidates. Most will use their problem-solving, design and practical skills professionally in career fields such as movie or theater set design. They could also build retail displays, or even create models of furniture, objects and people needed for making animated films.

Whatever students do after leaving the program, they take with them a greater understanding of hand craft as it relates to American history and life. And they have the satisfaction of being able to bring an idea into the physical realm where it’ll be used and appreciated.

“It’s really important that we get back to learning how to work with our hands,” Hall says. “If you want to make a chair, you have to know how to choose wood, how it will move. Then there’s that hand, eye, mind coordination that goes with learning and knowing how the chair is made. If you know how it’s made, you can take that knowledge and adapt it to make anything.”

Style, Pages 47 on 05/19/2013

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