Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: 28
Occupation: Ceramicist and lighting designer
Instagram: @megaplex
Hometown: West Caldwell, NJ
Studio location: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Describe what you make: Emotional work.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: I’d have to say the double orange foamy light. It was painstaking to make, but it really embodies the movement within the medium. It just seems as if it’s exploding in front of you.
Describe the problem your work solves: My work as I see it addresses the lack of comedy that exists in the design world. Not to say that my work isn’t serious, but I feel there is a great deal of work that lacks comedic attributes. People take a militant approach to everything. I like to just let it happen.
Describe the project you are working on now: I’m working with more terra cotta in similar language to my other ceramic work. I really like how the clay body fires, and my use of relentless repetition in freeform is something I want to express more in that clay.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: A table lamp in the aforementioned material, along with more of my brick work, expected in the spring. And also more foam lights! I made a bunch of tiny babies during the holiday season and they did very well. People seem to love intimate pieces, but I prefer to work large-scale.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: Black tea, those really random coffee candies from the Netherlands, WFMU, WNYC, and the communal aspect of my open studio is not only engaging, but hilarious. I love laughing hysterically with my studio mates over a dumb YouTube video or text message.
What you do when you’re not working: Usually I’m out socializing, or I go into Chinatown and putz around. When the weather’s bearable I’ll go into the city and just stomp around. Currently, it’s been a great deal of sunglass window shopping and dim sum.
Sources of creative envy: Tobias Wong, Gae Aulenti, Joe Colombo, Osma Harvilahti, Zbigniew Rybczynski, and Igno Maurer.
The distraction you want to eliminate: Push notifications. Even when it’s something totally asinine, it gets me every time.
Concrete or marble? Concrete.
High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse, or carriage house if you want to get fancy.
Remember or forget? Remember everything.
Aliens or ghosts? Aliens obviously! Beam me up!
Dark or light? Sunshine.
