Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: 42
Occupation: Co-founder and creative director of O&G Studio.
Instagram: @oandgstudio
Hometown: Glen Rock, NJ. Two square miles, 12 miles from New York City, with a small house–sized rock in the middle of town.
Studio location: Warren, RI.
Describe what you make: O&G designs and manufactures modern American furniture including the largest range of contemporary Windsor chairs in the US.
With the seating lines well-established, we’ve steadily expanded into new fabrication techniques and plays on materiality with an expanded range of offerings, including dining tables, accents, mirrors, hardware, and lighting. This past March, we introduced two new collections as part of this evolution—the Meridian Lighting Collection, a modern sconce family made from sand-cast brass; and the Hull Collection, a series of accent tables that blends O&G’s expertise in woodworking with the introduction of honed Carrara Venatino Marble.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: I was a jeweler before transitioning into furniture design, which was a really big leap for me. That said, our Atlantic Settee, designed in 2012, was the piece that made me feel like I could really be a furniture designer. It was also a landmark piece in defining the O&G aesthetic that we’ve become known for.
Describe the problem your work solves: To me, O&G offers our clients truly high-quality, handmade design with a range of personalization options, making it easy to place our pieces in many different project types and environments. Our scope of styles, material, and finish offerings provide designers and individuals work that has a distinct voice and legacy, which they can still customize to fit their own unique needs.
Describe the project you are working on now: We’re currently focused on exploring new product categories, materials, and silhouettes, as well as how to adapt our New England design philosophy and core expertise in Windsor-style seating to produce a wider, more diverse range of pieces for the entire home while still keeping the O&G style.
Specifically, right now I’m working on developing a new lounge chair called “Inlet” that’s based on a one-off daybed we showed at Next Level during NYCxDesign in May. We’re additionally expanding our hardware offerings with a kitchen collection that will be complementary to our Atlantic Hardware series, which we’ve had great success with since its launch last year. Also on the horizon is a collection of bath fixtures with Watermark that features split metal finishes and textures, and will be in full production by this fall. Before O&G, I was a jeweler, so getting back to metal in a way that relates to the studio’s current work has been a dream that’s slowly becoming reality.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: We’re incredibly excited to be presenting new work this summer as part of “Navigation,” a group exhibition of art and design on view at Salon in Boston. Amanda Pratt, Salon’s founder, is doing an amazing job of adding to today’s design conversation, and this installation is a great platform for us to present our new vision.
We’re showing a range of never-before-seen and recently launched works, including our Hull Table series which combines sculptural woodwork in O&G’s signature stained finishes with honed Carrara Venatino Marble. Also on display is a preview of our Inlet lounge seating collection, which is characterized by slender proportions, thin spindling, fine-tuned steel bent frames and comfortable leather or COM upholstery. Both collections hold a special place in my heart because to me, they feel like just the right expression of where O&G is right now and the vision we have in mind for the brand.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: A quiet shop, iced coffee, and all of my tools and materials set up so I can move as smoothly as possible from one step to the next.
What you do when you’re not working: My wife and I have two boys, 7 and 10, so I try to spend as much of my down time with them as possible. Rhode Island has beautiful beaches, which is where you’ll be likely to find us during the late spring and summer. At home, I’ve set up our garage as a shop for the boys, where we spend lots of time making contraptions and testing them out—mostly things that lift, fling, or catapult. My wife and I otherwise enjoy the small pleasures of everyday life—spending time with friends, eating, and hanging with our dachshunds Winslow and Turner.
Sources of creative envy: My creative energies fall into two camps—singular focused artists and designers, such as Mark Rothko, J.M.W. Turner, and 21st century ceramist Eric Roinestad—and those whose creative visions range across different mediums and formats, including the late master metalworker and designer David Mellor, and contemporary luxury furniture maker, ceramist, and woodworker Tyler Hays.
The distraction you want to eliminate: Traffic, holds for approval, clutter.
Concrete or marble? Marble.
High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse.
Remember or forget? Forget.
Aliens or ghosts? Aliens.
Dark or light? Light.
