Art and Style, Artists and Makers / 29 Mar 2018

Thinking Inside the Box: The Art of Jay Rogers

Jay Rogers’s sculptural wooden containers are metaphors for the psyche, hinting at the parts of us that reveal themselves only to those willing to explore. Lots of us used to put together model cars when we were kids; Jay Rogers is the first person I’ve met who paid equal attention to the insides. In high school, many of us listened to our friends moan about their romantic problems. Rogers thought, “How could I turn this troubled relationship into a Japanese puzzle box?” And he may be the only artist on the planet whose portraits have six sides, eight corners, and drawers. Rogers, a sixty-eight-year-old man with swept-back white hair and pale blue eyes, works—fittingly—inside a square, boxy bedroom in his Cambridge, Massachusetts, house. Here he glues veneers to plywood, cuts the results into pieces, and builds boxes that depict an Indian temple, a new marriage, or the story of the Cabinet (what else?) of Doctor Caligari. Rogers didn’t start out life in love with boxes—or wood. He grew up in Washington, D.C., where his first experiences working with wood traumatized him. His father tried to teach him how to hand-saw boards and pound nails when Rogers was too young. This frustrated the boy, which made his father angry, which led the Rogers to conclude that he was bad at woodworking. In high school, however, he was reading an Anaïs Nin novel when something jumped out at him: a reference to a Japanese puzzle box. He was fascinated by the notion of a container that revealed its interior only to those who knew its secrets. When a friend complained to him about a tortured romance with a girl, Rogers began to imagine that relationship as a puzzle box, and wanted to build it so badly he ignored the negative associations of…

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Art and Style, Artists and Makers / 21 Feb 2018

Wonders in Wood

Get Back Inc. owner Tim Byrne has a fitting nickname: “The Eye,” a moniker he earned for his ability to see the beauty—and utility—of industrial objects destined for the dump. An early adapter of the vintage-industrial aesthetic, Byrne started his company back in 2000, foraging for castaways in factories and workshops. In his capable (and creative) hands, a wooden gear pattern converts to a chandelier, a “Portelvator” machinist’s cart morphs into a bar cart, and a 1920s cast-iron crank engine hoist paired with a woven rattan Nanna Ditzel hanging egg chair becomes the chicest seat in town. Byrne’s shop, whose name is rooted in the philosophy of “getting back the spirit and romance of an earlier age,” produces two tiers of work: one-of-a-kinds and originals. The latter can be crafted in multiples and customized. Take, for example, the swing-out seat, a wall-mounted stool modeled after an early-twentieth-century English cafeteria stool, or the Gramercy Lamp, one of which appears in every room in the Julian Schnabel–designed Gramercy Park Hotel. The mission of Get Back Inc. runs deep, says the company’s content manager, Aaron Fagan. “It’s not just an aesthetic, it’s also about preserving history and our cultural heritage.” Oakville, CT, getbackinc.com I’m sixty-four years old,” says Peter Van Beckum. “I came to this a long time ago.” In fact, it was back in the late seventies, when he was part of the team rehabbing the nineteenth-century Fess Hotel in Wisconsin that he got his start. “They needed interior doors built, and I said, ‘I can do that.’ I had no experience, but they came out gorgeous,” he remembers. Years later, Van Beckum found his way to the North Bennet Street School in Boston, where he was classically trained. Today, he designs and makes exquisite commissioned pieces—tables, chairs, cupboards, headboards—many of which…

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Art and Style, Artists and Makers, Homepage Callout 2 / 15 Feb 2018

Tracy Glover: A Love Affair With Glass

For Tracy Glover, it was always about glass. As an artistic child growing up in Alexandria, Virginia, she was taken to art classes and museums, and she spent a lot of her time sketching. But her artistic drive found its focus when she came across a picture of a woman