Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Manley.
Adam, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I was born and raised in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York. I attended the State University of New York at New Paltz, where I received my degree in Political science and International Relations. While there, I pursued a minor in studio art, and sort of accidentally ended up in a wood design and furniture class. I fell in love with making things, primarily out of wood, and started a cooperative studio in Kingston New York, in the Mid-Hudson Valley.
After working as a furniture maker’s apprentice and running my own small commission business, I decided I wanted to pursue art and making full time, so I applied and was accepted to San Diego State University’s Furniture and Woodworking program. This program, at the time run by the legendary Wendy Maruyama and then new faculty Matthew Hebert, stands out in the studio craft field for addressing furniture and craft as broadly as possible, encouraging students to explore making with an equal emphasis on craft and concept. Here I pushed my work further into the realm of sculpture, while never losing sight of my love of the processes and language of furniture and function.
I began to use these things as a language for making conceptually based sculptures, installations, and objects. After completing my MFA, I immediately began a teaching position at the Maine College of art, in Portland Maine. After teaching their full time for two years, I spent a year as furniture program head at UMass Dartmouth and then spent another two years working in my own studio and adjunct teaching at Maine College of Art and University of New Hampshire. In 2016, I applied and got the job left vacant in SD when Wendy retired.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My work is an exploration of the complex relationship between people, places, and history (both shared and personal), through familiar objects. I create physical and theoretical points of contact with landscapes and environments, exploring how we interact with and interpret both manufactured and natural landscapes. I use furniture and other familiar objects, as a tool for addressing ideas.
As a critical intermediary between people and physical space, furniture is an integral part of our shared experience and of my own exploration and practice. The history and collective understanding of its various forms and functions provide me with a wealth of conceptual material as well as a platform for practical problem solving.
My interests lie in the unique experience and sense of history and place that each person has, and how that can be altered and augmented through manipulation of the objects that we associate with our surroundings. I am particularly interested in objects that simultaneously enhance, explore, and obscure our own relationships with place and understanding of our collective histories. I am currently undertaking three unique projects: The first, Itinerant Landmarks, is an ongoing series consisting of a group of human scale objects that can be disassembled or folded into basic wooden cases and taken out into the landscape to be photographed in new contexts. These objects use familiar forms such as surveying equipment, electrical towers, bell buoys, barricades, and vague signage, to engage with environments in ways that make viewers reimagine their sense of place.
The second, a new body of work entitled Ordinary Rendition, is presented as a line of sleek contemporary furniture but has a more sinister theme upon investigation. Each object in this “line” is a contemporary take on a historical device designed for torture and destruction of the human body. A waterboard, a pillory, a whipping post, Garrote: these objects place these devices solidly within the contemporary domestic environment. They look at our histories of destruction and inflicting as objects inextricable linked with our evolution and social development. These forms are presented on shag interior carpet and alongside vinyl images of them in domestic settings, channeling a contemporary furniture showroom experience. They are photographed in modern interiors amongst the trappings of a contemporary living space.
Finally, in collaboration with colleague and artist friend, Kerianne Quick, I recently completed the inaugural issue of a new biannual subscription-based publication entitled, Craft Desert. This hand bound and low budget magazine will feature two artists operating on the periphery of craft and design each issue, and one piece of writing by an invited writer. For our inaugural issue, Craft Desert is lucky enough to feature the writing of Paul Sacaridiz, Ceramic artist, teacher, and director of Haystack Mountain School of Craft.
What do you know now that you wished you had learned earlier?
My advice for other artists is to keep pushing yourself. Don’t get too comfortable and never get complacent. If you feel like you should be expanding your work, give yourself hard deadlines and strict prompts and make the work you need to be. Art should never feel easy or predictable. If it does, it’s time to change it up. Just because you are good at something, doesn’t mean you should stop there. try something you’re bad at. Something that scares you. Something that no one expects you to do. something that takes you out of your comfort zone and into that magic place where learning and growth happen. Also, collect art as much as you make it. start early with trades and cheap work, but make sure that you develop your own collection. It doesn’t have to be financially valuable, just important to you and obsessive. No artist should have empty walls or shelves. learn to live with art.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Currently, my newest work is en route to Indianapolis for a solo exhibition at the Indianapolis Art center. This work will be up for two months. My website is www.adamjohnmanley.com and the website for CRAFT DESERT, my collaborative Zine project, is www.craftdesert.org People can support My work by subscribing to CRAFT DESERT, or by coming to one of my openings. I also sell large photographic prints of my works in the desert and various other landscapes.
Contact Info:
- Address: Studio: WEKAAD Studio, 1975 Julian Ave, San Diego CA
- Website: www.adamjohnmanley.com, www.craftdesert.org
- Instagram: @adamjohnmanley @craftdesert @sdsufurniture
Image Credit:
Adam John Manley, John Brinton Hogan, Michal WIlson.
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