Custom Furniture by Joseph Keenan

 

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Artist Statement by Joseph T.L. Keenan

 

I have been a free-lance designer and furniture builder since 1991, using domestic woods and environmentally safe material and finishes whenever possible. In addition to my furniture projects I have designed gardens and residential housing, and taught drawing at several colleges and universities in San Diego, where I am headquartered.

My ideas about furniture and design have developed through my graduate work in Environmental Design (MFA ‘97 San Diego State University, where I studied under Eugene Ray and Wendy Maruyama) and my dual undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Environmental Design (‘92), which taught me that a designer needs to be a versatile person who has a working knowledge of all aspects of design. They must understand the purposes of industrial, furniture, interior, architectural, landscape design and city planning and their interrelationships. Also, I believe that a designer must understand the dynamics among people, interior and exterior spaces and the objects within them and how they effect society.

These ideas and beliefs have influenced my furniture designs in numerous ways. I try to use domestic woods that are plantation grown whenever available in order to help preserve the world’s rainforests and old growth forests which are the largest source of lumber in the world today and are quickly vanishing. I also use environmentally safe finishes and create designs that reduce the amount of waste material in their production.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at my work and I welcome your inquiries.

Sincerely

Joseph T.L. Keenan