MAKERS’ TABLE //
Dinner | Sunday, February 19, 2023 (6:30 p.m.)
Exhibition | February 23–March 19, 2023
Nationale hosted Makers’ Table, a special dinner event where 8 makers and 16 guests shared a meal in the gallery on February 19, 2023. The food was prepared by Josephine LaCosta of Elbow's Catering with wines by E&R Wine Shop. Everything for the evening was designed and fabricated by the crew of makers—dishes, glasses, furniture, utensils, lighting, and textiles. Each guest got to take their objects home following the dinner. The exhibition of the makers' sets is now on view in the Backroom Gallery through March 19, 2023.
Featuring works by Matthew Abadi, Sarai Black, Tom Bonamici, Parsha Gerayesh, Leah Howell, Karen Lee, and Carson Terry. Menu calligraphy by Jade Novarino.
Matthew Abadi was born and raised in Washington, DC, where at the age of 27 he first witnessed glass being made by hand. Captivated by the process, and the warmth and glow of the material in its fluid state, Abadi moved to the Pacific Northwest to pursue an education in the craft. Dedicating his attention to functional everyday objects while holding simplicity as a high virtue, he explores the versatility of the material using traditional glass working techniques. Abadi now lives in Portland, OR, where he works as a freelance glassmaker, artist assistant, and apprentice. In the spaces between he quietly pursues his creative practice.
Sarai Black is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes candles as a meditation, a spell working, a portal for beauty, and a way to create connection among community. In addition to beeswax she often works with fibers, plants, and blood creating weavings. Her work is in service to healing, transformation, embodiment, grief, connection, and love.
Tom Bonamici is a designer and educator specializing in furniture, timber framing, soft goods, and home cooking. He is interested in self-sufficiency, appropriate technology, and domestic economy. Bonamici is currently a senior instructor in Product Design at the University of Oregon.
Parsha Gerayesh originally trained as a fashion designer, holding a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design from the University of Westminster, UK. He is currently based between London, UK, and Portland, OR. Working for a variety of practices from commercial design studios to Savile row developed Gerayesh’s interests in construction and manufacturing techniques. This led to pre-occupations with developing ways of appropriating techniques between disciplines and to gaining an MA in Design Products from the Royal college of Art. Gerayesh’s work now relies on a multi-disciplinary approach to an object’s structure and medium, and as such the focus of his work is in challenging the processes of manufacture through design, creating new directions for objects, spaces, textiles, and furniture.
Leah Howell received her BFA in ceramics from the University of Colorado, Boulder and her MFA from the University of Oregon. She currently lives in Eugene, OR, and teaches in the School of Art + Design at the University of Oregon. Her work has most recently been exhibited at Coop Gallery in Nashville, TN, Rule Gallery in Marfa, TX, and Anti-Aesthetic Gallery in Eugene, OR, for which she received an Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity grant. Howell established Primary Ceramics, a contemporary design studio in 2022. With this venture, she creates handmade objects for the home that are both functional and decorative. Combining playful, modern West Coast vibes with the beauty and craft of Scandinavian design, Primary embraces clean lines, minimal patterns, and soft colors.
Karen Lee is a materials designer and collaborator of communal objects who is presently based in Portland, OR. She holds a BFA in Textiles Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her body of work engages in objects that redefine their roles in the domestic landscape. Lee leverages both woodworking and vessel making processes to explore new and unexpected forms of empathetic systems. She attempts to find new object systems that oscillate between our human understanding of them and that of the objects’ experience of inhabiting those structures. Lee has been featured on Dezeen, Sight Unseen, and Artsy. She has exhibited her work in Design Week Portland, Wasserman Projects, International Contemporary Furniture Fair, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Nationale.
Carson Terry is an ironworker who has studied iron and metalwork at the Penland School of Craft and the Oregon School of Art and Craft. Terry has been building their foundation around design and form in both large scale welded fabrications and small hand-held forged objects. Currently you can find them in their shop in Portland, OR.
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