11. August 2008 by Joe Gergen.

I am always being asked where I get inspiration from to design and build my furniture. OK, so maybe I only get asked every 6 months or so.  But you get the idea. Unfortunately I apparently don’t get the idea because when someone asks me I just flounder for some bogus answer about nature and other stuff.  Very lame and terrible. Just terrible.

So I need to come up with a cohesive (and coherent), short answer, or maybe a short, medium and long answer depending on the actual interest of the now captive subject.

First, I think I understand why I always pull the nature card (which is kind of a bizarre twist since I have relatively no interest in nature expect to notice when all the leaves show up or go away. So basically nature to me is “Leaves, no leaves.”) .  It is like nature but more in the sense of natural, or in more precise terms, it’s organic. The process is organic and evolvatory (yes, I know that’s not a word but it seems  more accurate than evolutionary).

So the nature part is the organic process and not the seed of germination. The inspiration must be coming from somewhere else. But where? As Pooh would say, Think, think, think, think.

Ahh.  You see there are certainly random inspirations like a Chinese character, a wrist watch, circus bears, M.C. Escher, Frank Lloyd Wright, boats, etc. But these don’t indicate much of a pattern except maybe a sampling of the items locked away in my brain that bubble up. So maybe that is a pattern. It’s like a toxic waste dump crammed too full and some waste leaks out the bulging sides now and then, drips onto my cornea and burns some apparently intelligible visual representation of its toxic essence. Yes, I think that might be it.

Wow, I thought I was going to write some hooey about math and proportions and negative space. But I like much better the idea of “trailing clouds of toxic glory” as impetus for inspiration. Wordsworth would be proud.

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11. August 2008 by Joe Gergen.

My friend Richard called me yesterday all excited and left me a message. He was at the St Paul Irish Fair and he had just won the “Best Legs in a Kilt Contest.” He’ll get to ride in the St Paul St Patrick’s Day Parade. Wow, it just goes to show you that you never know where those 15 minutes of fame will come from.

So if we all will be famous for 15 minutes, will you know when it’s come and gone? The information age has created such a wealth of activity out there that your fame may come and go and you might not even know it. Maybe that’s OK though, since fame seems to take a toll on so many famous people.

Speaking of the Irish Fair, I was there on Saturday and saw the Irish Music and Dance Association Workshop Tent. From afar I thought it said “worship tent.” I’m thinking, you’ve taken this a bit far, haven’t you. And anyway, all the real worshipping seemed to be taking place at the beer tent. 

Maybe I need to get a kilt. I could have pictures taken wearing my kilt and standing by my furniture. That might be a good PR gimmick.

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28. July 2008 by Joe Gergen.

As the Minnesota State Fair inches closer, I remember walking through the grounds last year and seeing a booth in the distance over the throngs of people. “Cruelty Fries” is what I thought it said and was intrigued by the idea, believing that many of the foods at the state fair are indeed cruel tricks on unsuspecting fair goers. Read the rest of this entry »

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23. July 2008 by Joe Gergen.

I just finished helping my friends Big Brian and Rosa do a little updating in his kitchen. New countertops, sink and range were the main additions, and all very nice improvements. The big opportunity, however, came from where things no longer were: the hole the built in range had vacated and the shelves whose doors had long since been removed as a nuisance. Read the rest of this entry »

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20. July 2008 by Joe Gergen.

“Hundreds of baby geniuses washing up dead on Brazilian shores” is what I thought the headline read. An awfully shocking thought that was fortunately a misread on my part. I could unfortunately imaging the cult out there that might exist that was kidnapping the world’s smartest babies. Read the rest of this entry »

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17. July 2008 by Joe Gergen.

I was doing some demolition in a client’s kitchen the other day and picked up a crowbar. And as I picked up the crowbar I noticed the brand-name label on it and it gave me pause. I was certain it said “RougeNeck” and wondered if I had stolen some Metrosexual’s crowbar. Unfortunately, after a moment of clarity I realized it was “RoughNeck.” Read the rest of this entry »

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16. July 2008 by Joe Gergen.

Or maybe when talking about personality and design it is begin, well, at the beginning, or start with human archetypes.  I recently received that comment back from an excellent theorist on design, Trevor van Gorp. He has a blog/website called affective design focused on emotions and design.   Read the rest of this entry »

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9. July 2008 by Joe Gergen.

I visited the 35W Bridge project the other day and was able to see the main spans coming from each side of the river to within four feet of each other.  My first thought was: What if they don’t meet in the middle? It immediately brought to mind those feelings of panic after you have put a ton of work into something and right at the end it doesn’t seem right. Read the rest of this entry »

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27. June 2008 by Joe Gergen.

I was driving through downtown Minneapolis the other day and I saw this big van that had the words “Donut Destruction” on it. Unfortunately what it actually ended up saying was “Document Destruction.” Read the rest of this entry »

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24. June 2008 by Joe Gergen.

Or maybe the Personality of Design. My latest thoughts on design are coming from an angle of personality. I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist so I am looking at it from the angle most accessible to me, which is from the Meyers-Briggs Personality Inventory. Certainly not infallible or absolute but at least a starting point. Read the rest of this entry »

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