Jess Fügler
StumpI often imagine an outsider’s perspective when encountering man-made constructs that feel needlessly perplexing, superfluous, or even slightly embarrassing. Stump emerged from one such moment. While discussing a set of chunky, cylindrical table legs, my woodworker described the process as “making round things square, back to round again.” The phrase stuck. It led me into the history of the U.S. lumber industry, where the absurdity only deepened: from the confusion of nominal versus actual dimensions, to the ecological consequences of early deforestation, to the peculiar logic of taking a naturally round material, cutting it into rectilinear forms, gluing it together, and turning it back into a cylinder.
Functioning as both stool and side table, Stump is made from ash laminated into a hollow block and turned into a cylindrical form. Throughout the piece, elements of adornment point to the human impulse to embellish and make meaning through surface. The exposed end grain reveals the intentional reassembly of the material, emphasizing the hand of the maker. Inlaid silver motifs draw from Ukiyo-e forms— a Japanese art movement that depicted nature, an art form that grew popular in the West at a time when American forests were being rapidly depleted and the lumber industry expanded westward.