Calvin/Herman Miller Project Up for Award

March 2, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

A project that paired a professor of art at Calvin, and several of his current and former students, with plant workers from Herman Miller Hickory in Spring Lake is up for a prestigious award.

Calvin professor Adam Wolpa led a team that created a permanent silk screen artwork for the entrance to the furniture plant's employee café. That artwork is part of a redesign of the café by local firm Integrated Architecture and the project has been entered in the interior architecture category of the American Institute of Architects Grand Valley (AIAGV) Honor Awards.

"We have no idea if it's going to win," says Trish Spaulding, the director of public relations for Integrated Architecture, which submitted the award. "It's just a cool project."

The awards will be announced March 11, 2006.

The design for the artwork is composed of repeated photographic images representing the two office furniture lines produced at the plant: Resolve and Ethospace. The completed 8' x 90' silk screen extends like a banner over the café entrance facing the production floor of the plant.

Because of his printmaking expertise, Wolpa was drafted for the project by former student David Malda, a 2004 Calvin graduate and Integrated Architecture employee.

Wolpa proposed that Herman Miller buy printmaking equipment to enable him and his students to produce the 24 panels of the 8' x 90' screen print. The furniture manufacturer would keep the finished work, and Calvin would keep the equipment.

"They were getting a really good deal because if they were to hire an artist, it would cost at least three times as much for this artwork," Wolpa says. "And it was a good deal for us because we got all this equipment we didn't have."

Professor and students produced 21 of the 24 panels (each composed of six separate screens) then moved the operation out to the Spring Lake plant, so that workers who would be viewing the artwork from the plant floor everyday could participate in its creation. A handful of Herman Miller plant workers showed on a Saturday to help produce the final three panels.

"A lot of my own work is collaborative," Wolpa says, "and this project really relates to the way I make art. I'm interested in the practice of it, the way it's lived out. The artwork is not the images or prints up there. The artwork is the process. To me, the collaborative aspect, being involved with those people at the plant, that's the most interesting part."

For the complete story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/herman_miller.htm

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Received on Thu Mar 2 16:59:56 2006