Fred Baier
Since 1975 I have been creating state of the art furniture in my own studio. In the early years, and with a post Pop Art manifesto, I produced work based on industrial imagery. Gradually the forms became more abstract observations concerning structure, process, composition and colour with an underlying interest in geometry channelled into the making process. I met my first computer boffin in the days when a computer filled half a room, and have now passed a point where computing has been used at every stage of design, development and manufacture of a piece. Through this I feel I am taking an active part in our transition from the machine to the electronic age. My pieces are intended as pioneering furniture statements rather than products; observations and thoughts about my time and chosen field. I seek expertise in all aspects of my creativity. My lifestyle is that of an explorer more than a designer. My adventures in search of knowledge, understanding and ability within my field help to expand my envelope of possibility. A keen interest in maths has led me to experiment with computing since the early eighties, looking for ways of harnessing it as a useful tool in a studio furniture making context. Even so I still find a pencil to be the quickest route from the brain to an image. In our object making world, hand skills are, sadly, expensive to acquire, seen as bourgeois, and avoided wherever possible. That notion does not apply to me. I stick to no rules but try to be a man of my time making objects of now. All means of expression, in whatever medium, are appropriate to my intention because they will have been carefully considered. The hands on way. I have maintained integrity throughout my career. Meeting clients, developing briefs and making the pieces. I have balanced the books, paid the wages, given the lectures, taken the photos, sold the work, driven the delivery vans. I include a host of people in my vocation and have made many friends and few enemies in the wide field of the visual arts.
Applications for apprentices are welcome.
Studio visits are welcome.