A Walk in the Woods

Tord Boontje is an industrial designer I am absolutely obsessed with. His designs are beautifully elegant, the cut outs of flora & fauna merging into giant swaths of fabric, plastic or paper, which engulf furniture, lighting and the body to name few. Last year my sisters bought me his book for my birthday, which I simply adore and pull off the shelves to lust over from time to time. Today being one of those days.

It's almost my definition of a coffee table book, purely because it's too pretty to have crush in along side my books on metalsmithing & textile design. Then again my actual idea of a coffee table book will eventually be a copy of the 1901 Times Newspaper, which I rescued from a skip at uni, when I get my own house/flat/cardboard box I'm going to get a big piece of glass and make it into a coffee table - yes it's that big. But since the historian/librarian in mum won't let me take it to piece to make into things, I need to find a good reason why I lugged it all the way back from Dundee.

Anyway, Boontje is one of those designers which makes me horribly jealous and enthusiastic at the same time, and the picture above, couldn't you see that as a piece of stage design for Shakespeare's, A Midsummer's Night Dream? A number of Boontje's designs have this as their inspiration, but I can imagine the absolute delight of seeing this swinging sofa in the middle of a wood and imagining magical reasons for its being there.

I really need to go back to A Midsummer's Night as inspiration. I gave up on it after high school and I always regretted that slightly. I have definitely improved as a designer since then so maybe I could do it credit now!

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Listening: Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now