For the aspire design and home magazine 2023 spring issue, we caught up with two celebrated craftsmen on the role sustainability plays in their work.
Brent Comber
From his oceanside studio in an industrial neighborhood of North Vancouver, artist and craftsman Brent Comber creates sculpted objects, functional pieces and environments that are at the crossroads of art and design. Working with sustainably sourced wood, Comber gleans inspiration from the beauty and majesty of the Pacific Northwest and translates the ideas and feelings his surroundings conjure into art, furnishings and larger installations.
Sculptural lighting CONNECTION, Seattle, Washington
Comber’s past experience designing gardens informs his current work, as it offers a foundation in balance and harmony, and in the beauty and tranquility of the natural world. At a loss for furnishings that were sensitive to these ideals, Comber set out to create his own, working first with timber recovered from old buildings that were being dismantled in Vancouver. “The Saddle bench was the first piece I did for a garden … and the homeowner actually moved it into her home,” the designer recalls. “I liked the experience of carving and the idea that the bench looked and felt right at home, both inside and out.” Comber eventually traded garden design for devoting himself to his new passion.
“I’m story driven,” Comber explains. “Sometimes a story is better told through art, and other times through design work. The suitable material and the condition and scale of its form will support the story.”
Ian Love
When life’s path led professional musician Ian Love to spend more time at his home in the Hamptons, his creative mind discovered an unexpected love for gardening and landscaping. “I’m a city kid,” he states, “so I didn’t know anything about it all, but I got really into it and loved learning how to work with my hands in that way.”
Cut to an invitation to the home of a local who sold firewood – two acres of logs and thousands of cut trees – and a new creative passion took root. “He was cutting them into firewood in front of me, and I just was very intrigued by it,” says the self-taught designer. “I started collecting pieces of wood from him, not really knowing what to do with them. Then I bought a chainsaw and started carving into them.”
Today, Love recognizes connections between finding this creative outlet and consequential second career and caring for his mother as she went through cancer treatment: The idea of giving new life to a living entity holds a special meaning. In the beginning, though, he was simply intrigued and experimenting. Now, less than five years later, the furniture maker and artisan who describes himself as “hard working” and “totally untrained” counts design giant Gensler among his clients, and his work can be seen in New York’s One World Trade Center and in the offices of Amazon Music.
For more on sustainability in the design industry, be sure to check out these resources.
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