Surface Furniture

This year has been one of many challenges and as many successes.  Due in part, I’ve experienced growth and development like never before; both personally and as a company.  Weary at times, I’ve depended on God’s grace and your support and encouragement, and with hard work and determination we continue to prosper.  And life and business are good.

My sincerest thanks.

I am truly excited about the upcoming year with many great ideas, endeavors, and relationships to look forward to.  Stay with me as Surface continues to grow, explore, innovate, make, and design.

From Sioux and I to you and yours – Peace, Love, and Joy this season!

my good friend and dj, Michael Murdoch (aka DJ Lurk), has been a literal soundwave of support emphasizing the importance, no, necessity of action and concrete output in life prompting me to “press record.”  in a lull?  press record.  designer’s block?  press record.  anything.  just do it without any preconceptions or expectations about the result(s).

i remind myself of this as a mantra, no matter my state of design, and put the pen to the paper.  what i find is that as i conceive, write, sketch, the ideas become fluid and dynamic, the process is organic, and the output is invariably solid .  my recent “recordings” have culminated into a new piece i call the Smith chair.

this first iteration of the Smith is an outdoor lounge chair of reclaimed, and milled doug fir wood beams composing the seat and back, and steel legs and back support.  there will be more material options available, and the single chair will soon be available as a set with an accompanying side table.  the Smith is debuting at the Forterre display at the San Diego Home and Garden Show this weekend at the San Diego Convention Center.

same dream, new clarity:  the American Dream, our individual dreams realized and (re)realized as we grow and change, as we live and understand who we are and where we are at any given moment.

the first in a series of three.

private residence - la jolla, ca

in the three years i’ve been at it with Surface in southern california i’ve been blessed to design and build for some incredible people, but this week marked the completion and installation of a project a year-and-a-half in the making for arguably the perfect client.  from the get-go the husband and wife team new what they wanted, and how to get it.  what they wanted was thoughtfully designed, and highly functional furniture/sculpture for their new Safdie Rabines home in la jolla, ca.  how they got it?  communication, trust, patience, and support; to allow me, their designer, to do what i do best with their intentions as my lens.

"piq" dining table

the outcome, alongside a stunning new home, specially commissioned artwork, and custom architectural metalwork, is a tailored ”piq” dining room table, bedside tables, and an “in&out” bioethanol fireplace arrangement that they couldn’t be more excited show and use.  i couldn’t be more excited either.  not just to be included in such a brilliant project, but to know that my clients are true patrons of the arts, that they support local (artists, designers, builders, and suppliers), and that they genuinely appreciate the work they have commissioned and received with joy and gratitude.

"in&out" ethanol fireplaces

thank you, and those like you.

Surface and start-up home improvement and sustainability solutions contractor, Forterre, have teamed up to provide San Diego residents alternatives to the standard offering sustainable and responsibly designed outdoor patio furniture, and travel trailers built for exploring Southern California.  see examples of some of the options available alongside Forterre’s brilliant collection of products and services at their exterior exhibit in the Flower and Garden Show at the San Diego Fair in Del Mar.

in celebration of our collaboration, Forterre’s introduction to Southern California at the San Diego Fair, and their encouragement of food, water, energy, and shelter independence, i am offering free design furniture consultations, and 10% off of one-of-a-kind display and show pieces marked “SDFAIR” here on the site through the end of the fair.  hurry though, the festivities end with a bang July 4, 2011.

at one point in the build process my client told me i had nice legs.  odd, i thought, but a kind gesture encouraging client/customer relations for sure.  then i realized he was referring to the table.  the “piq” dining table is a custom piece designed to compliment my clients minimalist, mid-century taste, and their beautiful Safdie Rabines designed home.  this table design is a nod to Seven by Jean Marie Massaud, and mid-century danish lines.  it accommodates ten around the figured marble slab, but the open, seam-welded steel legs will easily allow for a party of twelve.

Architecture is more than shelter, more than façade. It is the formal and functional expression of human context. Our histories, personalities, passions must be the foremost motivation in designing the built environment and everything within it. We are complete when we can identify with our surroundings and our surroundings reveal who we are.