ART YOU CAN SIT ON

Two local furniture designers bring art to your living room

Did you ever think you could be sitting on a very large part of the Denver art scene? Wait, it's not what you think. It's beautiful, it's functional-- it's furniture, and it is becoming an integral medium for artists in Colorado.

GOOG DESIGN

Patrick Ryan has been designing furniture for 10 years, the last six of which he's owned Goog. Although most of Goog's business comes from contracted custom designs, it has a large showroom of general pieces. "The show-room is an outlet for experimentation," Ryan says. "Generally, our work is tailored to the client. They have a notion of what they want and we listen to their ideas."

Ryan also stresses that Goog designers try not to define what the final purpose of their furniture is. "The founding premise for our art is frames that the individual can customize," Ryan says.

Ryan allows other artists to use the Goog showroom as well. "We collaborate with artists of all kinds," he says. "We reach out to find creative people, to show their work without taking the gallery route."

When Ryan looks for employees, he seeks out creativity rather than experience. "We look for energetic people with a fairly hip outlook," he says. "We can tell someone how to make some-thing, but we can't teach him or her how to be forward with creative energy."

PHILLIP MANN STUDIOS

Phil Mann also designs furniture in Denver. He has been working for the furniture company, Boykin Pearce Associates for four years, but for the past two years he has constructed his own designs. Before he embarked on design, he worked as a house carpenter.

"I realized carpentry wasn't going to challenge me enough," Mann says. "So I started looking around for a specialty that would be a little more challenging and interesting. I finally stumbled upon furniture making. Something just clicked."

He uses mostly wood materials, which add to the organic feel his designs already possess. "I'm pretty heavily influenced by my natural surroundings," he says. "I look for pattern, color and texture in flora, fauna and landscapes. I spent a fair amount of time in the desert and the architecture of the desert still inspires me ."

Mann feels furniture is a necessary medium in the art world. "If someone were to ask why he or she should spend this kind of money on furni-ture," he says, "I'd say it's the same reason you'd invest in any piece of art; to have that kind of human artifact around you is something that we're frequently losing touch with in our society where everything is mass-produced."

To get a better look at Mann's work, contact Boykin Pearce Associates at 1875 E. 27th Ave or call 303-320-3647. To check out the Goog shop, go to 765 Santa Fe or visit www.googdesign.com

--Elizabeth Beeson