Poetic license
They make look like ordinary tables and chairs, but to designer John Reeves, his furniture designs are poetry for the home.
“My product is quite poetic,” he said of his new Cast Aluminum series that was featured in the Four Hands showroom at World Market Center Las Vegas during the recent home-furnishings trade show. “By casting metal and finishing it with a soft patina and texture almost like slate or river pebbles, it has a poetic link to the outdoors with its form and flowing lines.”
He likens the contours and curves of the line’s pieces to a “river stone which has been slowly worn down over years to the quiet organic shape that only water and time create.” The stone represents the foundation of the planet, along with its reliability, strength, firmness and durability, and is further represented by the use of recycled and natural materials in creating the tables, chairs and benches in the line.
Reeves said his designs, which blend classical and contemporary elements, are inspired by everything around him.
“Whether it be nature, culture, social environments or materials, I am responding to the state of the planet on which we live and trying to make a more environmentally acceptable product — if it needs to be made at all,” he said. “I want to make something that’s going to last as well. I’m not looking at trends, but more at longevity, creating antiques of the future and things that will be around 100 years from now.”
His philosophy has led him to working with recycled materials and sustainable wood products. His Cast Aluminum series uses aluminum from recycled engine blocks and conduits and wood slats from oak that is Forest Stewardship Council-certified to meet sustainable forestry practices.
“John Reeves’ designs are so fresh to Four Hands and the world; he solves problems before they are a problem and thinks creatively outside any box,” said Brett Hatton, the company’s founder and chief executive officer.
A chance meeting during the 2008 International Contemporary Furniture Fair forged the alliance between Hatton and Reeves, both born in England. Hatton said he was walking through the event in New York City and was “stopped in my tracks” by the design of Reeves’ new Caprice bed.
“It was beautiful and like nothing I had seen before,” Hatton said. “It was a sculpture sitting on his showroom floor.”
The bed is hand-crafted of recycled aluminum and roughly sand cast from hand-carved wooden molds. The raw sand surface is not polished but is plated in zinc, creating a warm texture with a grey-blue patina.
“The best is yet to come out of John Reeves. John’s collections are a fresh take on classic design that create individual works of art and luxury in each piece of furniture,” Hatton added.
Like his shapely and sculptural Cast Aluminum and Caprice lines, Reeves said he strives to maintain a sense of poetry in all his creations.
His Louis collection, for example, pays homage to traditional and baroque décor. The contemporary lacquered collection is characterized by the soft inner curves of its legs, which are created by taking a traditional turned leg and splitting it into quarters, placing the cut edges on the outside and the curved side facing inward.
“I tend not to bracket myself in any trend or pigeonhole myself into any style per se,” he said of his varied designs. “I enjoy working with different materials and experimenting with different production methods.”
He said creating new designs is a very intense process that can take as long as a year. Not interested in using machinery to fabricate his work, especially in the creation process, Reeves said he focuses more on the social side of interacting with individual workers.
“I can intensely carve a piece in wood first and then cast it in metal. For me it’s very much part of being part of a community. I’m not just developing stuff for a world that is already saturated with product, I find ways to be relevant. I design with and for people I know, people I love and people I care about. Otherwise it’s just myself taking me on an ego trip and not making things that others will like.”
