The Furniture Society
American non-profit arts organization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Furniture Society, founded in 1996,[1] is a membership-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation working to advance the art of furniture-making by promoting excellence in that field. The Society, based in Asheville, North Carolina, has an international membership comprising furniture makers as well as other professionals and members of the public.[2]
Background
The Society provides a range of programs including annual conferences, exhibitions, publications, scholarships and awards of excellence.
Annual Conferences
The Society convenes an annual conference, in locations across the United States and Canada, usually in June. Each conference offers keynotes, artists’ presentations, practical demonstrations, theoretical discussions, and business improvement seminars. Past venues have included:[3]
- Purchase, New York (1997)
- San Francisco, California (1998)
- Smithville, Tennessee (1999)
- Toronto, Ontario (2000)
- Tempe, Arizona (2001)
- Madison, Wisconsin (2002)
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2003)
- Savannah, Georgia (2004)
- San Diego, California (2005)
- Indianapolis, Indiana (2006)
- Victoria, British Columbia (2007)
- SUNY Purchase (2008)
- Boone, North Carolina (2009)
- Cambridge, Massachusetts (2010)
- Portland, Maine (2012)
- Los Angeles, California (2013)
- Port Townsend, Washington (2014)
- Durham, North Carolina (2015)
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2016)
- Kansas City, Missouri (joint conference with the American Association of Woodturners)(2017)
- San Francisco, California (2018)
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2019).
Exhibitions
The Furniture Society has sponsored several major exhibitions of studio furniture. These include:
- Multiplicity: The art of the Furniture Prototype (2008)
- Show Us Your Drawers (2006)
- Curv-iture (2004)
- The Maker's Hand (2004, co-sponsored with The Museum of *Fine Art, Boston)
- Cabinets of Curiosities (2003, co-sponsored with The Wood *Turning Center)
- WilsonArt Invitational (2003, co-sponsored with WilsonArt)
- The Right Stuff (2002)
- The Circle Unbroken (1999)
- Contemporary North American Furniture (1997—invitational)
The Award of Distinction
The Award of Distinction is conferred annually by The Furniture Society upon one or more living individuals who are recognized as having had a profound impact on the field of studio furniture. The honorees exemplify lives devoted to study, work, and craft, as well as the education of others in the field.
The award is presented each year as a major event during the annual conference. Past recipients of the award include:[4]
| Year | Name | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Arthur Espenet Carpenter Wendell Castle Tage Frid James Krenov Sam Maloof |
||
| 2002 | John Makepeace Jere Osgood Alan Peters |
[5][6] | |
| 2003 | Jonathan Leo Fairbanks William Keyser |
[7] | |
| 2004 | Garry Knox Bennett | ||
| 2005 | Judy Kensley McKie | [8] | |
| 2006 | Tommy Simpson | [9] | |
| 2007 | Michael Fortune | [10] | |
| 2008 | Wendy Maruyama Walker Weed |
||
| 2009 | Vladimir Kagan | ||
| 2010 | John Cederquist | ||
| 2012 | Rosanne Somerson | [11] | |
| 2014 | Bebe Johnson Warren Johnson |
awarded jointly as Pritam & Eames | [12] |
| 2015 | Thomas Hucker | ||
| 2016 | Edward S. Cooke | ||
| 2018 | Craig Nutt | [13] | |
| 2019 | Tom Loeser | [14] | |
| 2020 | Kristina Madsen | [15] | |
History
The Awards were first presented in 2001, at the annual Furniture Society conference held that year in Tempe, Arizona. Five craftsmen were honored simultaneously in the first presentation, in order to make up for time lost in planning and funding the awards and to ensure that these five iconic figures in furniture making and education were properly recognized in their lifetimes. One of the initial honorees, Tage Frid, was unable to attend the ceremony due to health issues and died several months later. Three of the other initial honorees—Art Carpenter, Sam Maloof and James Krenov are now deceased.
Although the Award of Distinction has most often been presented to furniture makers and educators, anyone who has made significant contributions to the field of studio furniture can be considered. In 2003, for example, one of the honorees was furniture historian and curator Jonathan Fairbanks
Publications
Five biennial journals on Studio Furniture have been published by the Furniture Society: Furniture Studio: The Heart of the Functional Arts, 1999[16] Furniture Studio: Tradition in Contemporary Furniture, 2001[17] Furniture Studio: Furniture Makers Exploring Digital Technologies, 2005[18] Furniture Studio: Focus on Materials, 2006[19] and Furniture Studio: The Meaning of Craft, 2007[20] These volumes offer essays on design, fabrication and history as well as a pictorial gallery of the finest work made from the 1990s on. The Society also publishes catalogs to accompany the major exhibitions of furniture that it has initiated or co-sponsored with leading institutions, and a quarterly print newsletter, Furniture Matters. Recent Furniture Society publications also include The Maker's Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990 (168 pages, illustrated), 2003 from the Museum of Fine Arts Publications,[21] Mind & Hand: Contemporary Studio Furniture (160 pages, illustrated), 2012[22] and Rooted: Creating a Sense of Place: Contemporary Studio Furniture (160 pages, illustrated), 2015,[23] both from Schiffer Publishing.