Three artists, one inspiring setting
Vastly different furniture has been created by three artists who have long-term affiliations with Crab Tree Farm in Lake Bluff.
Take chairs, for example.
John Makepeace, an Englishman whose work is world famous, laminated holly wood in graceful curves to make Millennium.
Mike Jarvi's Throne looks like a huge upside-down tree root -- mainly because that's what it is.
And Critz Campbell was making lights when he came up with Eudora, molded of fiberglass and lighted from within.
These and other works by the three men will be exhibited at SOFA, which stands for Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art.
The show will feature works from 100 galleries around the world Nov. 2-4 at Navy Pier in Chicago.
Crab Tree Farm is a working farm with a distinctive early 20th century barn complex visible from Sheridan Road.
Organizations sometimes arrange tours of its private museum of Arts and Crafts furniture and accessories, especially the works of Gustav Stickney.
The owners of the farm, John Bryan and his wife, Neville, are known as patrons of the arts, and he served as chairman of the board of trustees for the Art Institute of Chicago.
Jarvi, who has lived at the farm off and on since 1980, said he likes to work with whatever trees or branches naturally fall.
"I feel pretty confident that I'm trying to first of all be organic and bring nature inside and make it elegant," he said.
He gets ideas talking "around the fire" with John Bryan, the graduate student that the Art Institute arranges to spend a year at the farm, and visiting artists.
Jarvi will also display his One-Piece Table at SOFA, showing his current style that involves steaming and bending wood.
It's natural that someone who grew up with the Finnish saunas of Michigan's Upper Peninsula would be interested in steam, he said.
Makepeace has traveled to the farm many times to plan pieces that he and Bryan envision for various spaces, said Jarvi.
Jarvi and Campbell both attended Makepeace's school in England.
"In school, we were encouraged to find our own style," Jarvi said. "We were not at all trying to emulate him except by trying to find a style that works for us."
That's a good thing for Campbell, who said he tends to use less traditional materials.
He has sold more than 200 of the fiberglass chairs, which are an easier sell when people sit on them and see how "unexpectedly comfortable" they are. Eudora is priced at $3,200, with the client choosing the fabric for the exterior.
Campbell also will exhibit some of his newer designs.
For example, he made a chair called George.
Crafted of maple with a Windsor back, its modern touches include neoprene gasket material and fluorescent acrylic rod, which glows.
He and Bryan are from the same town in Mississippi, and Campbell lived at the farm for about six years after college and built a ceramics studio there.
"The one thing about the farm, it's an atmosphere that really allows you to push your boundaries a little bit and do things unexpected. You don't have to be strictly a woodworker to fit in.
"Sometimes it's my job to make them scratch their heads a little bit."
If you go
What: SOFA Chicago 2007, Sculpture Objects & Functional Art
When: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 6 p.m. Nov. 4.
Where: Navy Pier's Festival Hall.
Admission: $15 for one day and $25 for three-day pass. Students and seniors $12. Catalogs $15.
Special exhibits: Contemporary decorative artwork by artists in Israel; ceramic bowls designed by 135 Palestinian and Israeli artists in support of reconciliation; wood turning and glass blowing.
Etc.: Preview with hors d'oeurves and wine 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday, $50.
Information: (800) 563-7632 or visit sofaexpo.com