Scaffold Furniture    1988

American dining is an activity of ritual movements and traditional utensils. Scaffold Furniture isolates the components of the dining table without the structure of the table. A chair’s seat and back float on a skeleton of scaffolding. Surrounding the chair is a plate, cup, glass, napkin, knife, fork, spoon and a lamp. Each is held with minimal support. Scaffolding is an element I use often to isolate and define. It is important to the understanding of process. Scaffolding floats an object in space and is crucial to the process of construction in architecture.    
The Japanese Tea Ceremony breaks the everyday action of drinking into many parts, creating theatrical events out of minute details.  To separate and dissect a whole into its parts is a way to understand.  During the tea ceremony each minute step is isolated and reassembled as if one continuous action, like a Muybridge film of a human in motion.