Ep. 102: Furniture Designer Jeff Martin
Furniture designer Jeff Martin grew up in Vancouver, BC struggling with punctuation and hiding in a dilapidated abandoned boat. He spent his teenage years expressing himself through skateboarding and snowboarding. Following a devastating accident and subsequent slow recovery, he found his voice through writing and reconnected to his body through physical labor and making. Now he’s using his voice and hands to build community, as well as beautiful, inventive furniture. Also, he’s thinking of doing mushrooms (as furniture!). Listen:
Follow Jeff Martin at jeffmartinjoinery.ca and on Instagram.
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What is your earliest memory?
Having a daughter now, and watching her grow, I can vaguely “feel” the times before language for myself. I kind of remember those moments of not having the dexterity or coordination to do things I wanted to do like grasp objects and put them in certain locations. But my first real memory is of playing on a toy car mat in our living room with my Mom.
How do you feel about democratic design?
I don’t know really what there is to feel about it. I like to design a certain way which has some built in barriers to owning, like pricepoint. But our processes are built into a system of our studio practice which is shaped on being based in Vancouver, which is an expensive city, and we pay our team well so they can think about home purchases and raising families. So naturally we kind of land where we land, which has a price tag. I think there are pitfalls to “democratic design” which may be an increased consumption of products, which I disagree with. But ultimately I would love to design some objects which are accessible price point wise, divert waste from the oceans as a source material, and are of a beautiful form conceptually and physically.
Jeff and his family
What’s the best advice that you’ve ever gotten?
I think that I lean a lot on John Levitties from Jagr Projects. He’s a great client. But a really incredibly knowledgeable designer in his opinions and immense historical understanding of our industry. When John has a suggestion for a piece, or a bit of wisdom to shed on our practice - I listen completely.
Also Henry from New Format Studio is incredibly wise for his age and I love hitting him up for a daily discussion down in his office.
I also chat a lot of Steve Haulenbeek, Gwen and Guillaine from Atelier Areti, Brendan Ravenhill, Zoe Pawlak, Jonathan Nesci, Cody Hoyt, Gregory Buntain and whoever else in the industry will pick up the phone with me. I think all young people getting into the game - don’t be afraid to reach out to people you look up to, and start a discussion with them. Not everyone will be open to it, but persist with those who are.
How do you record your ideas?
Oh man, I write myself a lot of emails. I sketch things out in notebooks, and model things on the computer. I make use of my Studio Director, Daithi, a lot as well. He kind of acts as a more capable set of hands for me when I don’t have the full capacity to get an idea out right when I need to see it. And I write a lot down. I try to capture some interesting words, or perhaps something a bit more poetic than practical about a design monologue I am having with myself with new ideas. Reviewing the words of something, can really help me establish if it is a good idea or not.
What’s your current favorite tool or material to work with?
At the moment there are a few. I have really loved making these modular plaster bricks out of torn silicon castings, in order to blow glass into. So plaster, rubber, and glass have been employed recently as new materials to us. But I love anything truly elemental. I find that basalt, sandstone, timbers, and cast metals have this feel of being culturally durable source materials.
What book is on your nightstand?
The Kilted Coo is a great kids book I read to Bea often.
Why is authenticity in design important?
The objects we design and make, the systems we derive to produce our work, all of it is just a physical manifestation of your thoughts. And if you are in the position of being able to make a living from doing what you love to do, you should be designing the work as true to you as you want. People want a piece of you, and it’s your job to get to the core of that.
Favorite restaurant in your city?
I just moved to a new neighbourhood. So, it’s not really a restaurant. But 1 block from my house is the best Iranian/Mediterranean bakery in Canada. Shout out to Laleh for their $1 baklava. It’s a problem.
What might we find on your desk right now?
A bunch of blank cheques and a VISA for Daithi to use while I’m on vacation with my family in Ontario. Behind my desk is the juicy stuff. I keep collected works from some of my favorite artists in our design office. Knowing that I want our work to be able to be in the same weight class as my favourite artists and designers, and having some of my favorite work in the studio by others helps give some context to our own practice.
Who do you look up to and why?
Tom Sachs, Flavie Audi, Sigve Knutson, Anton Alvarez, Max Lamb, Steve Haulenbeek, Cody Hoyt, the Haas Brothers, Takuro Kuwata, Thaddeus Wolfe, Chris Schanck, Lea Munsch, Mira Nakashima, Irina Razumovskaya, Linda Lopez, Pierre Yovanovitch, Chayse Irvin, my Papa, all my siblings, Bea and my wife Steph. They live with their hearts on their sleeves and are so true to themselves. There are many many many more.
What’s your favorite project that you’ve done and why?
We’ve had a couple “whole house” type of commissions which I love. So crazy to see all of your favorite pieces come into a place in multiples - and to develop a relationship with the family purchasing the work. I would like to expand on this practice a bit and bring more of my favorite designers into the fold so I can offer design/build, furniture, and art procurement as well. It would be amazing to see our company’s skill set be employed as a full service business.
What are the last five songs you listened to?
I was listening to Colter Wall’s album Songs of the Plains this morning, eating egg fingers with my girl for breakfast. Colter’s a hard living young farmer from Saskatchewan who has a knack for some hearty Canadian storytelling. It’s insanely good.
Clever is produced by 2VDE Media. Thanks to Rich Stroffolino for editing this episode.
Music in this episode courtesy of El Ten Eleven—hear more on Bandcamp.
Shoutout to Jenny Rask for designing the Clever logo.
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