I first became acquainted with Jim Murphy around Christmas 2004. A slight professional overlap in the realm of teaching -- Jim was then running the woodworking department and teaching a class on contemporary woodworking at the YWCA in Manhattan whereas I was just finishing my first semester as an adjunct writing instructor at the College of Staten Island -- led to a lengthy conversation on the difference between art and craft and the struggle to remain creative within a competitive economy.
Jim and I soon found we had a few other overlapping traits: We are both blessed with exceedingly supportive, exceptionally hard-working wives and we both share a Celtic fondness for fine scotch whiskey. As a result, our Christmas, 2004, conversation has since continued through a series of several dinners, parties and late-night gab-fests.
The conversation recorded below took place at Jim's Tompkinsville workshop, a mini fortress of solititude filled with woodworking tools, inspirational designs and large mounds of wood shavings. Jim was in the last stages of preparation for a major upcoming furniture show in Manhattan but still managed to devote a half-hour of his time to discussing the state of his career, the exciting progress of his design company, James Murphy Designs, and what moving to Staten Island five years ago has done for the both of them.
Looking North: So what's the show you have coming up?
Jim Murphy: It's called the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. It's the annual New York gathering of designers and manufacturers. The big design trade fair in New York City. It's gonna be from May 20th through the 23rd.
LN: What does it take to get into it?
JM: Well, it's a juried exhibition and then you have to rent a booth once you get past the jury. Booth sizes range from 10' x 10', which is what I'm doing, all the way up to just massive things. You know, the Italian national contingent. Stuff like that.
LN: You did this last year. What did you learn?
JM: Well, last year was the launch. I think the most important lesson was it's not really a sales gathering. It's a promotional show. You're there to get as much attention for your product as you can, for your designs.
So basically, I made a ton of media contacts and spent the year pretty much working them for as much attention in magazines as was possible. And that worked out pretty well. Also, I made some pretty strong contacts in retail and boosted legitimacy within the industry. Now, a year later, we've got a ton of magazine pieces but also three showrooms around the country carrying some of the work.
LN: That attention issue. I see that in other fields. What does attention give you in furniture design? How is the attention game different than in, say, the art world or the music world?
JM: I don't know that it's that much different. It's similar in that you're competing with everything in culture. In a sense, I'm competing with music, too. Because, really, furniture has become fashion. Design has become fashion, so this sort of stuff is all melding together. It seems like you're competing against the whole of culture. It's bad enough if you were just competing just in furniture, but everybody has a limited attention span, very quick daily lives, so you've gotta grab them the best you can. You've gotta get out there (with) images and articles.
LN: You mentioned that furniture is becoming like fashion. And I've also heard you mention before that your work is very much informed by the craft ethic. Those seem like two ideas in opposition. Is that how you see it?
JM: Yehhh... [pained hesitation]...yes, literally and, no, practically, because practically, in a sense, I would hope that my position in the industry is a bit of a statement in a way. It's anti-mass production. But at the same time it's high design. It's something that is contemporary by nature in its look but traditional in its construction.
LN: I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the term craft. You see it applied, again, in terms of music and writing, but this is the legitimate use of the term craft. I mean, you're working and building things with your hands. I wonder what it means from a furniture design perspective.
JM: Well, I think craft at its most basic sense is making something. You know, the process of making something. Not many things that are out there are made by hand anymore.
In a sense it's my selling point, but at the same time, the whole reason I wanted to get involved in this was because I wanted to do something that involved traditional craftsmanship, the actual physical tools and techniques. But in a contemporary context.
It just so happens that I think it works out as a market position, too [laughs]...and not just serious high-mindedness. It's just good marketing, I think.
LN: Was there anything along the lines of what I like to call the "shower moment" -- where you realize that pursuing contemporary furniture design from a craft angle might be something unique?
JM: It's not entirely unique in that other people are doing it. I just think that I'm trying to carve out my little niche in that corner. This might not seem like much to anybody that has seen my work, but in a sense, I'm all for American manufacturing. So there's a part of that that's in there, that might sneak into my discussions as we're talking about the work. Even in a small scale, though, it would be my hope to be able to make stuff here in America by hand with a bunch of people and be able to turn the stuff out. I see people responding that that time and time again, so I guess there's no one watershed moment but continually it seems to be validated.
LN: When you bring in the American aspect of this, it seems that dominant story with furniture or any consumer product over the last half-decade is that you could have it all done in China for ridiculously cheap right now. I can understand you staking an opposition position but at some point are you swimming against the Niagra?
JM: Again, it's like a yes and no. If I felt I was competing directly against pieces of furniture that cost $200, then I would say, "Yeah." That's something that's really hard to look into from the manufacturing or the design standpoint. I would absolutely have to go a different direction to be able to exist in that world, but I think there are different subsets of the furniture market, and I'm trying for that highest of the high end, which, y'know, gets carried through places that really promote craftsmanship and good design as something unique to the artisan.
It's more of an artisan standpoint. From a manufacturing standpoint, I'd be killed, but from an artisan standpoint, I think it works out.
LN: So the key is to establish a name that says, well, this is an artisan doing something interesting.
JM: Yeah. I thought it was going to be different than making art [laughs]. It turns out it's exactly the same. It really is a name recognition and, I suppose, a branding issue.
For the most part, all I'm trying to do is promote what I do. I'm not really taking on airs just for a marketing standpoint. It just seems to work and resonate with people.
LN: Yeah. So how did you get into furniture design?
JM: I went to school for photography and studied with some pretty heavy-hitter photography teachers and artists: Jan Groover and Gregory Crewdson, who's now just huge.
Um...[I] did that stuff, got kind of bored of photography because it seemed kind of flat to me, figured I could retire into it if I was failing physically [laughs]. But I wanted to do stuff with my hands, so I got involved with sculpture. After college, just as a way to make money, I started working in cabinet shops. Learned the trade through hands on stuff. Wound up doing furniture restoration in the city after that and then architectural restoration in the city. Was always making furniture and had my own shop doing custom stuff, so the idea was to launch a line and there we are.
LN: Pardon the crude analogy, but is sculpture like the theoretical side of the discipline and this is the applied side?
JM: Yeah. From a sculpture standpoint, I was always interested in really formal stuff: [Romanian sculptor Constantin] Brancusi, [American sculptor] Joseph Cornell, definitely [French artist Marcel] Duchamp. I guess you'd call Duchamp theoretical, but I took bits and pieces from each one of them that have some sort of vague presence in the pieces for me. I'm not sure if anybody else would see them, but they are formal and for the most part all about an object occupying space and quality of materials and quality craftsmanship. It's something you have to live with and, I think, it's as intimate as sculpture.
It's like jewelry for the house.
LN: That's an interesting way to put it. You generally work with wood. That's another thing that makes your pieces stick out. Is there a limitation in that medium or am I looking at it the wrong way entirely? Is there a zen sort of freedom triggered by those very limitations?
JM: Yeah, because it's relatively easy to work with on a small scalle. I don't need a massive metal machining enterprise or a casting and forming shop for plastics. So absolutely. The wood helps from a DIY aspect and at the same time it's an ultra-luxurious material.
I try to highlight native American hardwoods. I don't use anything that's endangered or from South America. It's not certified or anything, but at the same time these are heirloom pieces. In my mind it's green to make something that's not going to enter the wastestream any time soon. So what if it's made out of bamboo? If it ends up in the garbage in two years you haven't really helped the planet that much. That's my take.
LN: So what's this table we're looking at over here [see Photo #5].
JM: This table is the Halo Table. That's a new introduction for this fair. It's black lacquered white oak with a Carrera marble top.
LN: So how does something like that start.
JM: That was a tricky one. I'd been looking at a lot of lithographs of the solar system and whatnot. Circles seemed to keep recurring, and I wanted to try to get into something a little more fanciful [see Closeup Photo #6]. Just a hair less serious-looking than some of my other stuff.
It started from play, basically. I think all the stuff that I try to do...I draw a lot of things but often never make the stuff that I draw. These new ones come out of searching just with materials in the shop, making it as I go along.
LN: When you do the drawings, what separates a winning drawing from a losing one? Is it just the interestingness?
JM: The drawings are like building it on a small scale in a mental space. To me, the ones I wind up saving are all good drawings. I don't know if they'd be good furniture [laughs] you know what I mean.
I think the thing that separates the drawings from whether or not they get made -- primarily -- is expense. I often thing that, wow, how come I can't get more new stuff cranked out quicker? It's by and large a matter of the expense and the time or because I'm making stuff that people have ordered or custom jobs or it's the expense of the materials. Because some of the ideas for things are excruciatingly expensive: cast bronze. Just outrageous.
LN: Beyond cost, though, is it sort of like the classic question: What comes first the lyrics or the notes? When you look at something like this, what comes first? The idea of the table or the idea of the circles?
JM: I think just the desire to get something made.
LN: [laughing]
JM: No, I mean really. It's sort of like, oh, jeez, I have a week's worth of time in between things. What are we going to do next?
That's the fun stuff. Making the new stuff is really, really fun. Making it a hundred times over, we'll have to see how much fun that is at the end. I like them enough to make them and this is really what I signed up for.
LN: That seems to go back to the craft issue. Out at Historic Richmondtown they have a craftsman who talks a bit about traditional design. One of the first things he said was that if you were making something for use in the home or on the farm 200 years ago, you wouldn't have had time to mess around or be in love with your design. It was purely function over form:You needed something that could simply hold things up while you focused on more immediate tasks like getting the crops in and keeping your family from starving to death.
JM: Hysterically enough, 200 years ago someone who's doing what I'm doing would have a much higher place in society [laughs]. This is really working class craftsmanship meets boho-ism. It's crazy.
LN: What's the best case scenario that would come out of that combination? What's the best thing that could come out of this upcoming furniture show to be a little more precise?
JM: The best case scenario for me is to continue to increase the legitimacy and recognizability of the stuff that I'm doing -- just from a sheer number standpoint -- and to continue raising the bar in terms of quality of contacts and some sales. But I think ultimately just getting someone to represent the work that could do it the right way. I think that's the hardest thing. Because there are a lot of stores and a lot of showrooms, but not everybody shows handcrafted contemporary furniture well. You need people with a vast retail network, otherwise it's tough to sell. This is a sales based industry.
LN: If you look at something like this and compare it to Exis, one of the tables you featured at last year's furniture show, what sort of personal development do you see between then and now?
JM: I think Exis was a little more of a foray into the fanciful. That was a thin, wispy, almost ephemeral piece that didn't seem to have much immediate practical use. It was more of a display thing that you could put some candles on top of. This is definitely going more toward the uber-practicial-with-luxury-materials type of occasional table. I could certainly see it at home in a residential setting and I can equally see it in contract settings -- hospitality, stuff like that. Someone wants to order a hundred, that one's ready to rock.
LN: But in terms of your own work into it, is this more a reflection of your own understanding? Are you trying to get more towards a mass production model without killing yourself.
JM: Mm...no. Not mass production. Just a different, I guess more practical piece but still with the same very hand-crafted, finely detailed touches.
That's what you loose whenever multiples comes into play. You lose that nuance. We're trying to keep that.
LN: What would be the future of this? Would it be a case where somebody ordered the design or ordered the table directly from you?
JM: It depends who's representing, if there are any exclusives representing the work and it depends on the region of the country. Right now I'm represented out west by a place that f someone wants to place an order, they do it through them. They call me. They're all made ot order, but it would generally be through showrooms.
LN: What about this bench [see Photo #7]?
JM: I think the bench is going to get some good attention, because it's the first real seating that I've done. I've been in a contact with a bunch of people over the course of the year -- journalists and others -- who've said, "Add seating and I'll think about it." And looking at the market, there's not a lot of great signature seating.
There is a lot of seating, but you know this practical but at the same time very edgy and contemporary. Without going too far. It could work contemporary or traditional. [It has] top stitched leather cushion. That's a luxury touch. We're trying to move in that direction: Up the materials, not just wood.
LN: For someone like me who doesn't know from contemporary, what about this, what elements make it contemporary? What is the thing that will be noticed in your estimation?
JM: It think it's really the silhouette and the proportions [see Unfinished Bench Photo #8]. The silhouette and the proportions are very clean but without being cold. It is obviously some really nice walnut wood. Add the tactile quality of the soft white leather, I just think it all blends together. Really crisp, modern, without being hard-edged.
LN: Again, how does something like this get started?
JM: Uh [laughs] I actually made the top of that three years ago, and I've been kicking it around the shop ever since. It's one of the very few pieces I've ever made that I had to wait some time to figure out what to do next.
The leather cushion was always in my mind, but it's so expensive it's never something you'd just run out and do. [laughs]. It really is very expensive.
And then the legs...I just decided it was time to get the bench up and shown.
I guess it's a matter of deciding it's time to do it.
LN: When you had the top already done, how much of a constraint does that put on you? Are there a limited number of legs you can put under it?
JM: Yeah. I think it's a little bit ass-backwards to be honest with you in terms of my design process. I would probably have a vision for the way it attaches to the ground before I had something fancy going on up top. In this case maybe because it was backward it was a struggle, but I'm happy to have it. They shouldn't all be easy.
LN: Was there any inspiration, anything like the solar system lithographs for the Halo Table?
JM: I don't know specifically. It reminded me of some scoop. Some grain scoop or something from the 1850s. But also the arms seem to mimic the shape of a harpsicord. I listen to a lot of early music and that's definitely close to a harpsicord shape. I found a top view of a harpsicord and hung it up on the wall of the shop [Photo #9]. That graceful line.
LN: From a craftsman's perspective...that line...
JM: To me, it's just beautiful. I guess it's one of those elusive art questions. Can you...? My whole thing is can you point at it? In this case I feel that I can point at it. That line seems to be perfectly balanced and totally in proportion. I guess there might be some mathematics underlying it, but I don't know any of that stuff. [Laughs]
LN: Was it a hard thing to cut?
JM: Wasn't hard for me to come up with it and cut it there. To make it into a harpsicord would be tough, though, especially in 1644 or something.
LN: In other design fields we've seen a post-9/11 emphasis on solidity and security. The Hummer H2 is probably the classic example, but some have even described the whole real estate boom and home makeover mania of the last half-decade as secondary examples. You're designing things made out of very durable substances -- wood and stone. Are you seeing an increased desire for such materials within the home?
JM: I think I've definitely seen it and other people have seen it and have spoken about it a little bit, too. In a sense, the people that would buy high end furniture don't actually ever go away, because they'll always have money. But at the same time, I think maybe more people have gotten into the market just because they're keeping stuff closer to home and would rather have a richly adorned home life than something that sends them far afield.
LN: It seems that if you're setting yourself as running counter to the IKEAs and Wal-Mart's of the world, a sizable number of people are dissatisfied with that, at least people among the upper echelon of buyers are dissatisfied with that.
JM: I think in a sense people who would otherwise buy high-end stuff would applaud quality, low-price stuff that has good design sense, because there's also a lot of that out there. I'm not so sure if that it takes anything away from what I would do sales-wise. I just think that more people seem to have an eye towards something that is authentic, more authentic now. Post-9/11 might have something to do with that, but it's just a contemporary situation. A lot of stuff is really burning us out on the digital end of things and a lot of people are just looking for more authenticity. This might have something to do with that.
LN: How does working on Staten Island influence your work? Does it help or hinder?
JM: I think it helps me. I wasn't really prepared to do this in Brooklyn just because it's so congested. There are so many people doing it there, but that's not really it. It's just so congested. My living situation came first as a consideration.
Buying a house out here and being pretty accessible to the city was critical on that end and it just followed practically that it would be a great place to have a studio and keep it close to home. I'm happy to be able to walk from my house to here, to make stuff.
LN: That has to influence your work, even if it's only in a subtle way, I would think.
JM: Yeah, I think it definitely makes it easier to work. It makes for more of a direct connection between the things that are going on in my head or in the drawing book and being able to get right in and translate them. It's almost seamless is what I would say. Whereas if I had to commute to somewhere, if I had a cool studio in a cool neighborhood, I might be paying attention to other things.
LN: I can see getting on the subway and getting off, you've pushed your brain through two or three different states before you get to the place where you can actually touch the tools.
JM: That's true, but the fact that I have to take the ferry from time to time to get into the city, if I have a meeting or have to go teach, is a big part of my creative process. 'Cause I do a lot of my drawing on the ferry. It's a half hour of alone time [laughs] and out comes the moleskin. and it's time to draw some furniture.
And looking at the boats and being near the harbor, I guess all around it's a lot more influential maybe than I would admit.
LN: Where do you teach?
JM: [The] Pratt [Institute], in the fine arts department, and at SVA in the continuing ed [dept].
LN: And what are you teaching there?
JM: In the fine arts dept. at Pratt it's woodworking to all majors. It's an elective wood-working class. At SVA, it's all-comers, traditional woodworking with hand tools.
LN: As you mentioned, traveling across the water is helpful. Are any ideas rubbing off from interacting with the new people and with other designers in Brooklyn?
JM: You know, I need 'em both. I grew up in a suburb of the City and there was always this almost archetypal crossing-the-threshold experience: being on the bridge, heading into the big city with Oz looming in the background [laughs] and then making your retreat back into the peaceful bubble-enclosed green world.
This mimics that in its way, the ferry being a connector. I think it's more of an inspiration than anything. Little things. There's a lot to see.
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