Driven to design

 

Christopher Joyce is a crafty guy. The Halifax-based designer and co-owner of Attica Furnishings can master just about any type of art—paint abstract landscapes, build contemporary furniture from scratch, weld scraps of metal into elegant décor pieces.

At the core of each experience, Joyce is an artist with a curiosity for new techniques. “Creativity is really important to me,” he says. “For the most part, I’ve always seen myself as an artist, painter, printmaker, sculptor. Having many interests, it’s a constant realization that there isn’t enough time to do all that you want to do.”

His trajectory in the East Coast design scene has taken some interesting twists—a stint after art school as a printmaking technician in his hometown of Corner Brook, Newfoundland, crafting furniture by hand using steel, wood and recycled materials, and then in 1995 opening up the first contemporary-style furniture and design store in Atlantic Canada with his wife, Suzanne Saul.

Working from his studio in Spryfield but exhibiting nationally and internationally, Joyce’s furniture and artwork can be found in collections throughout the world.

His latest venture is in textiles, designing rugs for Toronto-based rug company Hellenic Canada. His designs include a series of rugs inspired by nature, mirroring bark and other natural textures, as well as a line of topographical map rugs. In this exclusive interview, Joyce shares his thoughts on design and what it’s like creating a rug from scratch.

 

What first got you interested in design?
I’ve always had an interest in art. After graduating, I found this great job as a printmaking technician in Corner Brook. Suzanne was doing her MBA at the time and our plan was she would possibly move to Corner Brook. We’d met at NSCAD [Nova Scotia College of Art and Design]. Suzanne could not see herself living there and after a year, I moved back and while I was unemployed, I started thinking about some earlier ideas of what I was interested in. The whole idea of making furniture appealed to me—it was a creative outlet. The ’80s was the height of craft in North America—before the economics of the world changed with our import situation. I decided to make some furniture and I had a little show at Park Lane in Halifax of some interesting, artsy pieces I made out of wood, steel and copper tubing. Some of the pieces were made from recycled materials, it kind of grew from there.

You have a very diverse range of talents.
That’s a blessing and sometimes a curse because I really don’t focus on one particular medium. My wife says to just go with the flow because it’s what I’m interested in. I also do welding and I have some interest in getting back into ceramics with some friends who are ceramic artists.

What approach do you normally take with each of your projects?
I kind of stress a little bit, sometimes I’m a little wound up [laughs]. A lot of my friends find it romantic but it’s work, it’s like anything. There’s a lot of internal searching. I grab any sort of influence from around me. Working in a furniture store, certainly I’m exposed to a lot of design, which is good. You’re always influenced from everything, everyday. I did a painting series last year that was inspired by things seen by the roadside. While I’m driving sometimes, if there’s something that appeals to me, I’ll stop and take a picture. It’s handy. I take inspiration from everywhere.

Do you have a favourite medium?
I like steel—sometimes I get a little tired of it because it can be dirty, oily and grimy but the nice thing about it is there aren’t a lot of people who want to work in that kind of material. It can be very contemporary but it can also very traditional too, so it’s a fun medium. I really like wood as well.

Crafting by hand—is that a trend?
People still like the idea of handcrafted but it’s not as strong as it can be. We try to pay ourselves a living wage. In that respect, it’s not for everyone, it does cost more than something you can buy that’s an import. Sometimes it’s about priority too. I always refer to a friend of mine who had this amazing sound system years ago and he lived in a basement apartment. He could never reach the full potential of that sound system but his priority was to put all of his money into it, which I think is quite amazing. If you can balance your priorities, that would be the ideal. For handcrafted pieces, if people could even consider at sometime in their lifetime to have a couple handmade pieces made, I think that would enrich their lives a little bit. Certainly it would enrich the craftsperson’s life a wee bit [laughs].

How did the work in rug design come about?
When I was speaking with one of our suppliers, he was interested in me designing some rugs for him. He saw some of my abstract paintings and thought that it would be an interesting project so he encouraged me to put together about 60 sketches. I was really flattered—most people rarely get an opportunity to do any design work for manufacturing.

What was it like coming up with rug designs?
I thought it would be an easy segue from painting and printmaking—and it is—but there is more thought. The owners of the company said, ‘Oh, just send us some drawings and we’ll work them out.’ Of course, I couldn’t just make it easy on myself, I had to design them, choose the colours, choose what type of thread that would be used…It wasn’t just the painterly aspect of designing a rug. It really can be a lot of work to decide what height the piles should be…The owners, they really do have a good understanding of how it will translate, so for the most part, it was very enjoyable. I’m on contract with them for five years to design more.

Tell me about the map rugs you’ve designed.
When I was meeting with this rug company, I didn’t know how they would feel about this idea. They liked the idea of the lost idea—it’s like someone who is urban in a lost space. I’ve always been an admirer of maps and topographical information. My rug idea, I kind of simplified it to follow the major cities of fashion. It romanticizes the idea of fashion. The cities I focused initially on were London, Paris, New York and then Toronto. It’s somewhat abstract but still a point of discovery.

What design trend excites you the most?
Right now, there is an interesting trend of nature and people are using natural elements… I guess it’s a reaction to the glam element, which is still popular—the white leather or lacquer, chrome and glass, it’s a very ’70s design. As a reaction to that, you’ll see more bark, tree elements, reclaimed wood, rustic steel and ceramic. I’ve always been interested in that rustic element—I like that primitive use of design. Primitive in that it’s somewhat understated and raw. Wood that looks unfinished or may be unfinished. If it gets marred or distressed, I find it really appealing. I like the idea of distressed metal that has some corrosion…I think this will be a trend that will stick around for a while…What makes it so exciting is that it takes the pressure off of being so pristine and precise about interior design.

Is contemporary design becoming more popular in Atlantic Canada?
I think it’s still a little bit on the fringe. I think because of television shows and magazines, especially in the last 10 years, they’re really important to help make it mainstream…Years ago, the closest people would have sought out contemporary would have been at Ikea—it’s the more simplistic version of modern design. Now, we have people looking at the last 100 years of design and looking back to the modern, like the 1940s and ’30s. It’s amazing because a lot of the sofas people seek out that are contemporary are actually stuff from art deco. A lot of these sofas are from the ’30s, in terms of design. And so it’s really what’s old is new again and I think it’s a great time where there’s so much out there in terms of design to draw from.