Roy McMakin (born 1956 in

Lander, Wyoming Lander is a city and the county seat of Fremont County, Wyoming. It is located in central Wyoming, along the Middle Fork Popo Agie River, Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River, just south of the Wind River Indian Reservation. It is a tourism center ...

) is a

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

–based

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exper ...

furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...

maker, and

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Biography

He began his studies at the Museum Art School in Portland, but soon transferred to the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

, where he completed a BA in 1979 and an MA in 1982. At

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing ...

, he studied conceptual art making, under the likes of

Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American performance artist, installation artist, painter, and assemblagist . He helped to develop the " Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. ...

Manny Farber Emanuel Farber (February 20, 1917 – August 18, 2008) was an American painter, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic",Grimes, William (August 19, 2008) ''New York Times''Kiderra, Inga (August 21, 2008Obituary: Artist and Crit ...

Jean-Pierre Gorin Jean-Pierre Gorin (born 17 April 1943) is a French filmmaker and professor, best known for his work with ''Nouvelle Vague'' luminary Jean-Luc Godard, during what is often referred to as Godard's "radical" period. Jean-Pierre Gorin was a student ...

, and Patricia Patterson. In 1987, he opened his first showroom on Los Angeles' Beverly Boulevard, called Domestic Furniture Co. Though the showroom closed in 1995, it remains online today and has resumed production with Big Leaf Manufacturing. Additionally, his work has been featured in solo-exhibitions at galleries and museums, he has designed entire houses, and increased the production of his furniture for his showroom. His most recent retrospective was a 20-year survey of the sculptor and furniture designer's oeuvre at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Henry Art Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the campus of the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the Un ...

in 2005.

Influences

McMakin's furniture hints at influences from particular architects, designers, artists, and larger trends in American furniture design. His designs echo the Arts and Crafts tradition, Shaker designs, Art Deco and '50s Functional styles, and even mass-produced American commercial furniture. He also admired architect

Irving Gill Irving John Gill (April 26, 1870 – October 7, 1936), was an American architect, known professionally as Irving J. Gill. He did most of his work in Southern California, especially in San Diego and Los Angeles. He is considered a pioneer of the ...

, a pioneer of early 20th century pre-modern design, the sensitive wood worker,

George Nakashima George Katsutoshi Nakashima ( ''Nakashima Katsutoshi'', May 24, 1905 – June 15, 1990) was an American woodworker and architect. In 1983, he accepted the Order of the Sacred Treasure, an honor bestowed by the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese ...

, and artist

Scott Burton Scott Burton (June 23, 1939 – December 29, 1989) was an American Sculpture, sculptor and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite and bronze. Early years Burton was born in Greensboro, Alabama to Walte ...

. In fact, he lived in the 1917 Hancock Park house designed by

. Of

Gill A gill () is a respiration organ, respiratory organ that many aquatic ecosystem, aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow r ...

's house, McMakin said "It seems to be charged with the element of time, that domesticates whatever was off or unusual about the work when it first appeared. ��Small, simple houses need to come back in. We need to be more sparing in the way we spend our natural resources. We need to be caring about the natural limits of our environment." His professor,

, taught him the basics of conceptual art making and provided him with an artistic community in which to experiment. Some critics have likened his taste for minimalism to the great minimalist artists, such as Sol Lewitt and Donald Judd. While other historians have placed him in an artistic lineage that includes West Coast natives John McLaughlin, Robert Irwin, and Charles Ray.

Exhibition History

2016 *Roy McMakin: A Table, Garth Greenan Gallery, September 29–November 12

References

Selected bibliography

Johnson, Ken. “Art in Review; Roy McMakin.” ''New York Times'', October 21, 2005, sec. E.

External links

roymcmakin.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:McMakin, Roy Pacific Northwest artists American designers American cabinetmakers Artists from Seattle 1956 births Living people