A Good Place to Sit

Matthias Pliessnig

Sinuo

Even though Rhode Island–based artist Matthias Pliessnig draws inspiration from “myriad things,” including the shape of a woman’s body, his distinctly curvaceous benches can all be traced back to a sailboat. After completing the furniture design program at Rhode Island School of Design, he wanted more time to hone his craft and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where one of his projects was to make a boat. “I learned how to steam bend wood, and it’s not really an accurate way to bend wood, but I realized you can build intuitively and still very accurately,” he says. After that, he began making seats that are structurally rigid yet utterly comfortable. Pliessnig starts with a computer-drawn design, then improvises while making each bench—such as this 2018 Sinuo (3.5 x 15 x 7 ft.), made of locally sourced white oak—so no two are alike.

matthias-studio.com | @matthiaspliessnig

Refractory Studio

Scimitar

Much like leather, this bronze bench is meant to get better with age. In fact, leather was part of the inspiration behind its design. Refractory founders Angie West and Alberto Vélez used a bison hide to make the mold that would translate into the piece’s uniquely textured surface. “It reflects the ruggedness and creatures of the [American] frontier, of folks who came before us and endured so much,” says West. “The textured areas wear like a saddle; the bronze will become more beautiful the more it is worn, so we want people to sit on it and not be precious.” Scimitar (16.5 x 66 x 17.75 in.) was fabricated across the hall at Refractory’s sister company, West Supply, a highly regarded Chicago foundry and glassworks atelier; it is a single continuous cast bronze form that starts out with a rigid base pattern—a CNC’d hard pattern cut from a 3D file—that is then sanded and manipulated.

refractory.studio | @refractory.studio

Kate Greenberg

Milk Bench

This piece, made for a solo exhibition at the 2023 Alcova design show in Milan, Italy, reflects Kate Greenberg’s fascination with the past and imagined future of domestic objects (she marvels at the way humans have replicated the sun by creating lighting, for example). “I brought this idea of how we could live in the future to the basement of an old slaughterhouse in Milan,” she says. “The bench itself is a reflection bench, and it’s referencing milk stools because they are some of the earliest pieces of furniture, and my work explores the history of domestication.” Draped over the 18-by-60-by-20-inch bench is a blanket made of pure natural latex, whose outline can recall the slab of a milled tree or a large milk spill, purposely eliciting a parallel between the vital liquid inside both trees and mammals. Greenberg crafted this piece using aluminum and sheets of stainless steel at her studio in Alameda, California.

kategreenberg.studio | @kate.hands.co

Paola Singer, a freelance writer in New York City, is a frequent contributor to American Craft.