Open Learning
It’s said that learning from Michael Fortune is like drinking from a fire hose. For the eight who participated in his six week open studio residency in New Zealand at the start of 2020, it was definitely a case of immersion.
Michael Fortune is the ‘anything but square’* furniture designer maker and educator from Canada whose work is known and collected all over the world. During the six weeks, participants were encouraged to step out of their comfort zone, and to use their time as an opportunity to experiment freely.
Michael is a wellspring of energy and radiates positivity. He smiles readily and an eyebrow may arch when he comments on a student’s work: ‘How about if we did this?’ ‘Have you thought of putting this on its side?’ There is no wrong, but there can always be other ways of going about things.
Woodworking is about problem solving, but part of the problem is which solution to run with, because there are many ways to cut the proverbial joint. Design is about form, line, material choice and all-things visual and then it migrates to decisions and solutions to processes. These will be selected and adapted for a range of details which flow down to micro level.
Learn from Michael Fortune and US-based Kelly Parker, who co-taught during the residency, and you will be sketching, creating mock-ups and prototypes. You may learn to construct exo- or endoskeletons, in other words, support frames for complex constructions that will allow you to determine reference points and angles for joinery. And there’s not much chance that you won’t learn about making and using jigs. Joinery and
