Woodworker: John P. McCormack

McCormack built this chair as his thesis project at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). The design highlights two sides of his training: traditional furniture making at North Bennett Street School and art-furniture/modernist design study at RISD. To add another layer of complexity, McCormack draped the chair with a layer of phrase-laden gauze right before he presented the project for critique. At RISD, “I thought that the critical environment was overemphasized, to the point that often, the work was obscured by the language,” he wrote in an email. By putting the chair “in drag,” he aimed to show how language can obscure the art.

Photos: Mark Johnston

Launch Gallery