Date of Award
Spring 6-4-2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Furniture
First Advisor
John Dunnigan
Second Advisor
Emily Cornell Du Houx
Third Advisor
Harry Allen
Abstract
Most of my memories consist of lively dinner parties. Hands moving in every direction when the food is brought out. The piano bench for the kids to sit on, the fold out table necessary to fit everyone around the meal, and always endless stacks of plates. These experiences and traditions were curated by my heritage and have a strong presence in the work I design. I intend to understand and create interlocking relationships of care, where ritual and romance lead the way to form a community; designing and making furniture and objects that reassert hospitality within the home.
Hospitality is an act of surrender and generosity. I look to welcome my guests into a warm and comfortable room not just to have them sit in interest, but to add their voice and views on what they are experiencing. I surrender my perspective to theirs and together we form a unique, unrepeatable event.
These design settings are meant to bring people close together, evoke curiosity, and as a group find joy in the details. My use of shape, line, and colour brings these sentiments together in the form of an object. Each object plays a role in a larger picture – simultaneously existing within and creating the space in which it will be found. Furniture and objects come in shapes and scales unfamiliar, but that retain more than a sense of their purpose. Each piece has been designed in parts, and only once brought together exist as a whole, to be experienced.
Recommended Citation
Shvalbe, Elana, "In this form, together" (2022). Masters Theses. 839.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/839
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
View exhibition online: Elana Shvalbe, In this form, together