Design For You: Mark Giglio
The Design for You competition has captured the imagination of over 10,000 of you. And there is still 3 weeks to go before we get to the final prizes. Good luck all who have entered!
Here’s the fourth in our interviews with the artists who painted the Eames’ rockers for the competition. Dave Cuzner interviewed the Oakland-based artist Mark Giglio for us back in January. We revisit his studio to hear about the experience of working on a classic piece of furniture.
How long have you worked in your current studio? My studio is in Oakland California and I’ve been here for almost 9 years. Soon I’ll split my time between here and my new home studio. I’m mostly doing graphic design work out of my studio because it’s a small space in an apartment. Then at my home studio I’ll have a wood shop and printing area. I’m really excited to be able to do a lot more with the two spaces.
What would you change about your workspace if you could? Before I would have said limited space. But now I tend to only think about making a new desk for my home studio and what materials I’ll make it out of. And how I can build out my home work space to be modular so I can easily go from wood shop to print shop to painting studio.
What do you most love about your space? That it’s my personal space with all the things I like being around. My projects, my books and things I’ve collected on my travels. They are all there. I often spend a good amount of my time freelancing in other people’s offices so I really appreciate coming back to my own space. It’s really nice having a personal space to experiment and work in.
Describe your style? Graphic and simple.
As an artist how do you keep your space organized? Bookshelves and organized piles. I like things to be organized or categorized in a certain way and found piles and bookshelves work best for me. That way things are out in sight and I know right where everything is. Clutter distracts me so my space is usually very organized. My laptop is pretty much like my surroundings, over organized. Everything is hidden in a folder in a folder in a folder.
Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do? What inspired the final design? Being apart of the ‘Design for You’ project was really awesome. I’ve been an Eames fan for a long time so getting to work on a rocker was really cool. My final design was inspired by the rocker itself and from the creative brief which was to design something around Herman Miller’s motto “For a better world around you”. I sat and thought a lot about how a rocker might be used before I started sketching. The thing that stuck with me the most was story telling, how a mother might be rocking her child and talking to it. Which then lead to how important it is for us to all talk and share things. To pass on environmental wisdom to one another so we can build a better world around us. Once I had my concept I sketched things out and finalized my design about two days before painting the chair. Then the last thing I did the day before the shoot was make my cushion. Cut the pattern from my scrap fabrics and sew them together.
What inspires you? Learning about new processes to make something with, exposing myself to new things through travel, going to museums and libraries, meeting new people and friends. Trying to learn and expose myself to new things, I think that is what keeps me inspired the most. And also always wanting to make something new. I really love making things and that ultimately is what keeps me going.
