Featured Artist of the Month

This month's featured artist is Josh and Kim from Jersey City. I got a chance to interview them about their collection of modern furniture. Here is what they had to say...

What type of artwork do you do?
We’re furniture designers who love sculpture so we try to make pieces that have a big emphasis on form. The work is modern and bold but also functional.

How long have you been creating?
Josh Urso Design has been around since 2002 but I’ve been interested in art and design since I was a child. Both of my parents studied art in school so they introduced me to it at a young age. Our house was filled with paintings, sculpture, and decorative objects when I was growing up. I actually started college as an engineer, thinking I wanted to get into automotive design but switched to Industrial Design after two years and really got into my furniture classes.

How much time do you spend working on your craft?
Craft is one of the hardest things to pin down. It’s just a constant challenge. You can always improve your skills and work to perfect things even if you have some natural talent. Our designs take so long to develop because there is a struggle to invent new forms of craft just to realize what we imagine. I’ve been working with resin for almost 10 years now and it still surprises me sometimes. For me, the overall form comes to me in almost an instant and then there is a year or so of perfecting the design and figuring out how to produce it.

What inspires you to create?
I get excited when I come across new materials and manufacturing processes. (Maybe those two years of studying engineering did have an impact on me.) Finding something new to work with gets me thinking about how I can use it to create something else.

Do you have a designing process?
The process begins when I have that first idea for a new design. From there I generally discuss the idea with my partner Kim who helps to edit it and we begin some preliminary tests of materials and possible ways to make the design. Often a new design will call for a search for just the right material. For example, our rope tables use a specific braid and fiber content that we’ve developed over time. It then takes a year or so to finesse the process. Along the way we may need to change the form to work with our method of creating the piece. Trial and error are some of our best friends.

Where do you do your creating?
We have studio space in a factory building in northern New Jersey . All of our pieces are created there.

Have you always been artsy?
I think based on my parents it was inevitable that I would be a little artsy. They gave me an appreciation for good design, quirky design, and beautifully created objects.

Do you have another job?
I do engineering and CAD work for another company and Kim designs and sells her own jewelry.

Where do you sell your pieces?
We prefer to sell our pieces directly to the public either by buyers contacting us or through sales on Etsy. We also sell through a couple other online retailers including... www.artfulhome.com and www.plushpod.com

Do you enjoy what you do?
Of course! It is both challenging and rewarding to work for oneself.

Do you have a favorite piece in your shop?
Knoop, the rope table, is definitely my favorite design. It took a lot of time, energy, and creativity to get that piece together and I’m just so pleased with the end result. It’s clean, distinctive, and people can’t seem to figure out how we make it.
Click HERE to view

Do you have a blog set-up?
We don’t have a blog but sometimes I think we should.