Ursa The Bear by Areaware; David Weeks Studio. Image from the catalogue.
I had the great fortune to hear product designer and sculptor David Weeks speak last night at the Knoll showroom on 9th Avenue to a room full of eager recipients. The topic of discussion covered his doings and creations in the last 8 years and the development of what has become David Weeks Studio.
David shared about his background. Listening to his journey from studying painting, apprenticing with a jeweller, and other ventures it seems that his passion for the act of making is a continuous vein throughout. The small-scale industry emerged through creating objects and sculpting them with accessible materials. It took Weeks 5 years to start selling one product per week, and about 8 to start really making money from the venture. His work now sits in communion with other designer masterworks in the Ralph Pucci showroom.
Overall his desire is to stay true to the making of objects in line with his personal engagement with those materials and the synergy which leads to a finished design. His earlier work included designs for desk lamps. Branching out he tackled chandeliers. More recently he is working on a series of ‘Areaware’ creatures such as Hanno the wooden gorilla and Ursa the bear.
Weeks spoke of the threat of copyright breaches by larger industry players, and the inability of smaller enterprises to contest or even bother about contesting those breaches. When asked about this his view was philosophical; even if someone makes something very similar to ones product on the market it is still not made with the same intent, the same materials or in the same way.
In a market rife with plagiarism the handmade and locally made aspect of Week’s production is surely one of the studio’s great strengths. Likewise advantages are Week’s ability to be flexible with product development and following the market closely.
Design seems to run in the Weeks household. Wife Georgie Stout is Partner in the multidisciplinery studio 2×4 which is responsible for design scapes for events at Prada, Nike, and corporate ID for the Brooklyn Museum.
Ursa the Bear