The 2019 Utah Design Exhibit
The evening of Friday, October 11th, the 2019 Utah Design Exhibit opened at Trolley Square with a celebration including drinks, hors d'oeuvres, a musical performance by cellist Scott Wasilewski and a nicely curated set by DJ Ryan Condrick. During the course of the night, over 400 attendees came to enjoy pieces of fine furniture built by designers both local and from around the country.
The Utah Design Exhibit has doubled in size since its inception in 2017 as a single night showcase and growing to a three-day exhibit featuring pieces from 30 furniture and lighting designers. The exhibit is curated in part by founder and director, Chris Proctor, while additional curation and direction is provided by the Board of Directors: Eric Jacoby, architect and furniture designer; Dustin Matinkhah, owner of Dara Modern; Julee Attig, marketing director at Reaveley Engineers and Mojdeh Sakaki, program manager of the Fashion Institute and Interior Design at Salt Lake Community College.
Since its inception, the exhibit has taken place during Salt Lake Design Week, a week full of speakers, events, panels, workshops and parties hosted annually by AIGA Salt Lake City. We have loved meeting and working with this team who put so much effort into this exciting week for our city.
This year, the directors organized a chair design competition sponsored by Imbue Design. 13 chair builders entered their designs to win a $1,000 cash prize and gallery space at Dara Modern. The judges included the show’s director, Chris Proctor, board member Dustin Matinkhah, professor of Furniture Design at SLCC and contributing editor to Fine Woodworking Magazine, Chris Gochnour, and one of the principles at Imbue Design, Chris Talvy.
The four judges convened the day before opening night and discussed at length the merits of each chair, rating them in categories of craftsmanship, durability, comfort, originality and aesthetics. At the end of deliberations, the panel awarded Colorado furniture builder, Kenny Wine’s plywood slat chair Most Original Design. The first place prize was a close call, with local builder Chad Parkinson taking runner up with a slender and elegant claro walnut and leather rocking chair, and Justin Brown taking first with his incredibly shaped and seamless walnut lounge chair. The winners were announced at the height of the party and given custom trophies designed and built by local builder and exhibitor, Garth Franklin.
The exhibit was held in the northwest event space at Trolley Square, an old brick space about 30 feet wide and 90 feet long with tall, vaulted ceilings, brick archways, steel trusses and stained glass windows. Each exhibitor placed their work on a white platform spaced evenly throughout the venue with dedicated light fixtures trained on each platform. After going through reception the attendee could stop at the bar where Fisher Brewery was present serving beer and wine, or stop at the hors d'oeuvre table for a snack from Delice Bakery.
To begin the night, cellist Scott Wasilewski performed a number of adagio and a piacere pieces while attendees began to trickle in. As the night progressed DJ Condrick provided a medley of tracks curated to complement the viewing experience.
The work featured this year presented a nice mix of traditional styles like Shaker, Windsor, Greene and Greene, Maloof and Krenov-influenced designs, as well as Danish modern, Art Deco, industrial and contemporary designs. This year was the first to feature builders from outside the state of Utah.
Scott Nelson and Sarah Watlington, graduates of the Krenov School of Fine Woodworking, journeyed all the way from Los Angeles in a Honda Fit full of their work to enter in the show. Of the pieces they brought, Nelson’s bar height chair with hand-caned back and seat, and Watlington’s cabinet on a stand were two pieces particularly admired among woodworkers.
Brian De La Cerda, also a graduate of the Krenov School, traveled all the way from San Luis Obispo. His two cabinets were of such original design that they also drew much admiration from woodworkers in attendance.
Kenny Wine of ATLA Designs in Boulder, Colorado packed his work into a custom built Sprinter van to make the trek. Kenny works in wood and metal and prefers minimal, clean and crisp lines that add to a space without distracting.
Craig Bayens of C. Bayens Furniture packed his ‘99 GMC full of his work and traveled all the way from Louisville Kentucky, not forgetting his 125 cc mini trail bike. Craig contributed to the show with two custom lighting designs and an incredibly attractive credenza of original design.
Salt Lake Community College’s school of Cabinetmaking and Furniture Design has played a major part in the show since the start and this year provided 10 furniture exhibitors. Professor of Furniture Design, Chris Gochnour, is a woodworker, writer and teacher of over 30 years. In 1999 when a tornado ripped through the heart of downtown, Chris was commissioned by the Capitol Preservation Board to build a desk for the Governor’s office made from trees felled during the storm. He has taught classes at the University of Utah and is currently a Contributing Editor for Fine Woodworking Magazine.
Chris’s knowledge of traditional woodworking, hand tools and joinery methods has enabled hundreds of inquisitive woodworkers to improve their skills and designs at an impressive pace. After only a couple semesters of schooling, Gay Meyers designed a curved front desk with a veneered top and matching arm chair, which she showed at this year’s exhibit.
Crystal Fraughton, Amy Costello, Shelby Bukus, Savannah Hess, Doug Folsom and Carrie Bridges all designed their own casework pieces in the form of a cabinet on a stand, wall-hung spice cabinet, credenzas and a blanket chest, all employing complicated joinery techniques, kumiko panels, veneering processes and hand rubbed oil finish.
Cory Warner of Hayrake Woodworks also came from the school and showed a beautiful collection of chairs, stools, bowls and a cabinet on a stand displaying works by local potter Ernest Gentry.
After completing classes at SLCC and an apprenticeship with a local furniture company, Chris Kading continued his work as Crest Carpentry with a focus on well-designed contemporary and modern styles.
Chantel Cook began learning woodworking in 2015 at SLCC and has since worked under a number of apprenticeships. She built the elegant Danish modern coffee table in collaboration with Chad Parkinson of the Furniture Joint.
Scattered around Salt Lake City are a number of collaborative maker spaces. One such space houses a collection of merry craftsmen who work in wood and metal, and who played a big role in this year’s showcase. Chad Parkinson displayed an elegant claro walnut rocking chair as well as his collaboration with Cook. Garth Franklin, aside from producing trophies for the competition, entered an original chair design and a visually engaging coffee table made of a large burl separated into slices with blackened steel.
Forbes Slater designed and built a delicate radiator cover made of rice paper and a kumiko panel. Colby Carper built a wonderful danish modern armchair, and Sam Tresco entered a number of original designs made of equal parts wood and metal, all of which employed some kind of play on physics, such as his tension table kept aloft with a run of spectra sailing line tensioned so tight that a fully grown adult can stand on one end of the cantilevered top. In one of the greatest feats of craftsmanship at the show, Lucas Leprey and family displayed an 18’ canoe built entirely by hand over the 2018 calendar year.
Ben Manheimer of North North displayed his A1 rope chair, and cooked up a trio of incredibly interesting pedestals made of bent sheet metal finished with his own custom patina and cast brass which flows over the tops and down the sides in an organic style.
Eric Jacoby, as a trained architect, focuses on architectural elements of furniture while employing simple lines and attractive construction like his original style of folding chair, The Tectonic Folding Chair, made of either steel or aluminum.
Of the exhibitors, Manheimer, Carper, Parkinson, Franklin, Wine, Meyers, LePrey and Jacoby all entered chairs into the competition. Brandon Wolsey entered an original chair design employing a great deal of joinery in the legs in an offset grid pattern. Jeff Griffin also entered an original design using a pattern of stress balls as the back and Tyvek house wrap for the seat. It was very comfortable!
We were excited to be able to include lighting design in the show this year. Two lamps were provided by Bayens as well as two original designs, a bentwood lamp by Jenny Wong-Stanley of Art of Plants and a 3D printed array of illuminated crystals designed by Haley Tessomiris of FabParlor.
The Utah Design Exhibit provides a network for the wealth of custom furniture and interior design talent that exists in our city. The exhibit provides a place for designers to meet and for the public to discover them. Custom work will be more accessible to the public by providing a market for custom builders and through educating people on the value of investing in fine furniture for their home rather than purchasing disposable furnishings from big box stores.
As the founder of the exhibit, I was incredibly proud of this year’s show. The level of talent displayed was inspiring to me and I was excited to be able to share it with the world. To have the public in that historic space enjoying music and drinks while appreciating the craft was vindication for all the work that was put into the exhibit. It is clear to me after spending years as a furniture builder just how many talented men and women are producing work locally and across the country. When I consider this I am excited by the prospects for the show in the coming years. If you are interested in keeping up with the show, please sign up for our email list for updates on some exciting developments coming up for 2020.