Inside Yoav Liberman's Studio: Flash Teapot

April 22, 2008

Artist Statement

Found objects and discarded wood serve as both the literal and the metaphorical “raw material” for all my work: they provide the actual physical basis out of which a new piece will be formed; but just as crucially, they provide the conceptual inspiration for that new piece.

I find myself especially inspired by the hidden potential in objects which are no longer desirable for their original purpose—the lid of a now missing frying pan, the frame of an old metal filing cabinet. As lids or cabinets they may be well past their prime, but when combined with other materials they can be reincarnated as new, functional, aesthetically interesting pieces.

Most of my “raw materials” are objects that I find myself somewhat inexplicably drawn to, either because they exude a sort of material integrity, or because I am saddened to see them abandoned. Once I find such objects—I am always prowling through people’s discarded wares—I sketch, study, contemplate, and eventually design new elements to help transform the undesirable into the coveted.

Flash Teapot

2005

Maple, walnut, brass, copper, camera-flash reflector, epoxy, 9 x 7 x 9.  

About three years ago I found several pruned branches on the grass in front of the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The branches belonged to a majestic and ancient maple tree that was cut down a year later due to illness.

One of these branches became my "State of the Union" bowl (500 Wood Bowls, Lark Books 2004). Then I turned a second bowl, but unfortunately it broke into pieces while under construction. A few years later I received an invitation to make a teapot for an exhibition at the Mobilia gallery in Cambridge. When I started to design the teapot I remembered the broken bowl and its pieces and decided to use it as the basis for the new piece.

First, I glued the old remains together with black epoxy adhesive, in a similar fashion to the technique by which archeologists reassemble ancient ceramic objects.

Second, I made the teapot arm-base from laminated walnut. My friend Leslie Hartwell, who has collaborated with me in the past, created the copper and brass arm-cage.

Finally, the lid of the teapot was constructed from an old photography flash unit with a beautiful stainless steel reflector-fan.

I turned a two-part walnut knob that serves as a hub and finial to the reflector-fan. The knob facilitates the opening and closing of the fan. The lid, with care, can be taken in and out of the arm-cage.

About Yoav Liberman

Yoav S. Liberman is a studio furniture maker. His work combines the old and new, using found objects and discarded wood as a source and inspiration for the pieces that he builds.

Yoav received his architectural degree from the Israel Institute of Technology. From 2001 to 2003, he was an Artist-in-Residence at the Worcester Center for Crafts. In 2003, Yoav joined Eliot House at Harvard University where he teaches woodworking and furniture design. In October 2006 Yoav was appointed as an adjunct faculty member in Shenkar College, Israel, where he teaches furniture design, materials and construction.

His work has appeared in several juried exhibitions in United States, most recently in the Trashformations East exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum and in SOFA Chicago 2005. Yoav’s Etrog box was one of the finalists at the 2005 Niche Awards.   

Yoav’s articles on furniture design and woodworking have been published in Israel’s leading design magazines.  His work has also been featured in several nationwide publications, including the the Harvard Gazette (2005, 2007), Woodwork Magazine (Oct 2007) and the Boston Globe (Nov 2007). Two of his pieces have appeared in a recent art book on innovative approaches to woodturning – 500 Wood Bowls (Lark Books 2004)

Yoav designs and builds his pieces at his Harvard studio in Cambridge MA. His pieces can be found in galleries in Cambridge, Worcester and Acton as well as in private collections in the United States, Israel and England.

View works by Yoav Liberman at his web site: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~liberm/