I’m all about being able to make things in the most efficient manner possible. A lot of my crafts projects don’t turn out quite perfect as a result but they’re functional. When I first saw Tom Price’s chairs I thought that must take so long to get the seat / bowl shape so perfect. Then I read his site!
Those are cable ties, made into a chair. It looks like an urchin to me – hence my initial interest. It also sort of looks like a hedgehog.
Close up of the melt – as I was saying before – how would you streamline this process of melting a chair shape into a pile of cable ties? If you’re Tom you’d heat up a chair mold and just push it into the ball of ties! It makes so much sense when you hear it but I really would not have thought of it…and I’ve taken many casting classes, which functions under similar principles.
These are common plumbing tubes. Interestingly, if you go to his site you can see he’s started making these where he cuts the tubes and they’re more chair like but I like these ones that are larger, more aggressive and look like they could protect you.
He uses slices of these same tubes for phenomenal, cloud-like installations! I love how that looks and it’s taken over a whole room. We’ve hung a lot of art and stuff on our walls lately – maybe I need to start considering the ceiling!
Another chair, this time of hose. I like how this one burned. The interesting things about recreating the same technique on multiple materials is that each material acts differently. I can imagine burning tolerance is one thing that is pretty unique to each materials.
I saved my favorite for last – the blue rope. I like how this one melted into a smooth capsule. My first thought was, are these weatherproof? If so I could see a bunch of them in a meadow around a bonfire pit. I love the color and the knotting – very cool. We’re getting up now and heading down to the SoWa Open Studios here in Boston – I’m sure I’ll have more to show later!