PAWEL

Meeting with Pawel Plucinski

Friday, Day 2

That day was intended to visit museums and galleries and let myself get inspired by the place and local artists. In one of the places dedicated to arts and crafts, I noticed a handcrafted set of wooden bowls, which grabbed my attention straight away.
The technique used by the maker was similar to the studied before method of making wooden spoons.
I managed to get in touch with the artist, his response was very positive and seemed keen for a collaboration. I ended up meeting with him the same day.

the-workshop
The actual meeting was an exciting and uplifting experience. Straight away I could tell that the artist possesses versatile skill set, the various objects, art pieces spread around his studio showcased him as not only a great carpenter. He told me he is a designer, sculptor and painter, offering full set of different skills after years of experience.

Pawel was kind enough to share with me his work, processes, presenting passionately examples of his and his father works, who refers to barrel making techniques. Being overwhelmed with his works, and the endless possibilities he has presented to me, I knew I would need to come back to previously made decisions and ideas.

Those wooden bowls which fascinated me from the beginning had a lot to offer, especially from the material and technique point of view.


It is worth to mention that each bowl size, shape, pattern depends on the log’s width and wood species. This creates a unique approach to each product. The material on the other hand, soft wood is used, as it is easier for the manual processing (same as for the sculpturing).

All this time I was thinking about a way of combining leather with wood to create some kind of lampshade.
 I was so excited about this possibility, I was very close to place an order for similar objects as these bowls.
Despite my intentions, and after some thought along with a consultation, the problem I came across laid on achieving thin enough walls that would allow drilling the holes required for stitching it with leather. This would cause unnecessary problems.

One of the other concepts was to create legs for the chair using this technique. The raw material, and very subtle sculptural aspect would it be a great. Although, looking at the design of the bowls, its textures and overall shape, I made my decision to incorporate this into an unusual and comfortable sitting.
This was the point where I knew I want to reinterpret the objects of my inspiration into a seating with an ergonomic bottom shaped chiseling surface.
The idea was also inspired by a story told by Pawel. He remembered as a child that his grandfather used to have a little stool made entirely out of wood, sculptured in a particular way. This discovery inspired me to go with this concept and with the help of Pawel achieve something imaginative with a story to tell.

This was a long day, with a lot of information and good decision making. It lasted until midnight. The passion was visible from both sides, as we could not stop talking, brainstorming, sketching out ideas. His understanding and positive attitude confirm a lot of my design thinking. We were ready to take this to another level – prototyping.

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