Scrappy Innovation + the Infinitely Scalable
Crushed Orange with Church Fan by Hannah Vaughan, 2022. Scrap metal, hydraulic press and sledge hammer, 16" x 18" tall. Photo by Sol Erez.
Strength in Drag by Vivian Beer, 2024. Formed, fabricated, and painted steel, 19.' x 4' x 15' long.
This workshop uses design ideation and craft techniques to develop each participant’s creative voice in metal furniture and sculpture. We will jump between the Hotshop and the Fab Lab, cutting digitally designed parts with a CNC plasma cutter and assembling and further manipulating the parts through metalworking techniques. We will sketch, model, critique, and weld. Whether your goals are sculptural or functional, living in a virtual 3D space, or for a public art sculpture, Haystack will become our creative laboratory. Experience with Rhino and computer modeling is a plus, but not necessary. All levels welcome.
Hannah Vaughan (she/her) is a designer and craftswoman, originally from Los Angeles, CA. She currently runs her own design/build studio in the Hudson Valley in Newburgh, NY. Studio projects range from large sculptural installations and furniture design to architectural works. Vaughan’s design has a direct material brutality to it, from using crushed cars and chainsaw-carved stumps to large rusted panels. Her works combine a primitive urgency with the infrastructure of our industrial landscape.
Vivian Beer (she/her) is a designer/sculptor based in New England. Her sleek, abstracted metal and concrete furniture combine the sensibilities of contemporary design, craft, and sculpture to create objects that alter viewers’ expectations of and interface with the domestic landscape and public spaces. Beer received a BFA from Maine College of Art & Design and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy. Her work is in many museum and public art collections, and she has held numerous residencies, including at the Penland. She was a 2014 Research Fellow at the Smithsonian, was the winner of Ellen Degeneres’ Design Challenge, and named a 2017 USA Fellow.