Christopher Poehlmann’s long time obsession with the decorative arts began in 1985 while studying photography in Salzburg Austria. During that semester abroad he found an attraction to European Modernism and contemporary design that has never faded. For over 30 years, this love affair with the design and built object has provided intellectual and financial support for this maker.
Poehlmann’s interest in faux bois began in 1994 with his discovery of some imported Italian steel rods embossed with a wood bark pattern intended for use in the iron railing industry. He had recently moved from a six year exploration of soldered copper furniture, lighting and accessories, with gallery shows across the country, to a new found love of welding steel. Taking a short break from building a body of work he called Relics of a Post-Industrial Cartoon Age for a solo show in Chicago made from salvaged steel (the idea of sustainable design was pretty foreign at the time), Poehlmann began experimenting with the rusticated steel rod which he would come back to again and again over the next two decades and still uses today for custom furniture and the Twiggy light fixture series. Using the steel rod like pick-up-sticks, he would weld table bases as if a pile of sticks were tossed in the air and frozen in time, defying gravity and creating a sculptural base that was to be the precursor of today’s Rustic or Organic Modernism movement.
Being a trend leader isn’t always the key to financial success, but it certainly can be gratifying on retrospect to discover wide reaching influence over time. The word “up-cycling” was not part of our lexicon when Poehlmann first began using found objects and salvaged materials. However, he found that using cast-off materials instead of new could add meaning and thus value to this practice. His work was and still is at an interesting intersection of Design, Fine Craft, Sculpture, and Sustainability.
As Poehlmann grew more prominent in the design world, he also became more involved with the related world of Studio Furniture. Two terms on the Board of Trustees for The Furniture Society (www.furnsoc.org) put him in touch with his peers internationally and gave him a forum to help expand the idea of what furniture means as a maker. He and then E.D. Andrew Glasgow developed an exhibition of studio makers to be featured at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) which has now become an annual feature of the show. Poehlmann also arranged and curated a number of gallery and museum shows for the FS including Multiplicity: The Art of the Furniture Prototype at the Neuberger Museum in 2008. His latest venture in curating is a show entitled Contemporary Wood Lighting at the Messler Gallery of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport ME.
In 2005 a commission request opened a new door for Poehlmann when a long term client requested an asymmetrical chandelier for a project she was working on in FL. After a lot of experimentation, Poehlmann realized that the idea of a cantilevered tree branch was the ticket and the seeds for his newGROWTH series were planted. Trial and error proved that welded aluminum pipe was the ticket as it is strong and light. Each fixture in this series is custom built to his client’s specifications and as the artist states: “ there are no jigs or forms, each piece is hand assembled with the idea of a tree being predisposed to grow into a fully functional light fixture.” Keeping nature in mind at the same time as practical design concerns of evenly distributing light and allowing for proper channels for wires to be chased internally position the newGROWTH series firmly in that Art/Design continuum Poehlmann is so attracted to. Using up-cycled aluminum pipe from the salvage yard was a perfect fit for his sustainable studio practices along with the knowledge that all “new” aluminum he uses is quite high in recycled content. The high profile of his company CP Lighting also positioned the newGROWTH series to be a prime influencer in the Rustic Modern and Organic Design wave that has been spreading around the world over the past decade. His working method for the newGROWTH series is most akin to growing a design -- as the artist works with only dimensional parameters and a rough sketch or two and allows the sculptural interpretation of a branchelier to grow and develop on the welding table, nature and nurture.
Faux Bois has also played a strong role in the furniture Poehlmann creates in his studio for commissions and occasional gallery shows. Cartoon wood grain laminates by WilsonArt and Arborite have given him license to be both reverent to and poke a bit of fun at the live edge work of woodworkers who are influenced by the work of George Nakashima. Poehlmann creates the ultimate in artificial slab table tops by laminating high grade plywood with the black and white or colorful wood grain countertop material and then free cutting the sheets to look like live edge lumber, complete with perfectly round knotholes for a super-natural effect. The bases of these tables and chairs often are made from aluminum in the form of tree branches. Sometimes his old favorite rustic tree bark steel is used as in his cross bred Modern Rustic chairs equally influenced by Adirondack furniture and de Stijl.
2017 marked Poehlmann’s entry into the world of blown glass. But it is significant to note that he chose a local Philadelphia based glass company that specializes in up-cycled bottle glass to partner with. Remark Glass has perfected the extraordinarily difficult process of combining disparate pieces of heated bottle glass in the age old incalmo process to achieve Poehlmann’s Incalmo LED Pendants and Wall Sconces. This process involves cutting and heating wine and champaign bottles in a kiln then two master glass blowers must re-blow the bottles and marry the two pieces, re-heating them in a furnace and finish the shades all in less than 1/3 of the time traditional hot-shop glass is worked. Cast-off clear liquor bottles are manipulated in another series design directed by Poehlmann with the Remark Glass blowers pushing the bottle glass to it’s limits to transform into irregularly shaped globes for Poehlmann’s LiquorLamp and Pod series. The variety of mold blown shapes that liquor bottles come in help inform the shape that the shades become, coupling that with the shortened work time and the hand blowing process guarantees a unique outcome each and every time. The re-invented forms of the liquor bottles are then further enhanced with silver mirrored interiors with glow translucent amber when lit from within. Some are also chemically antiqued depending upon the design Poehlmann is after with each fixture.
The natural evolution of design for Poehlmann has led him to invent and re-invent his newGROWTH fixtures over and over again. The latest foray is to bring the recycled bottle glass shades into an elegant new line of sculptural organic fixtures. The Pod series often are dual purpose lamps, equally at home as pendants or table lamps.
Christopher Poehlmann will continue to grow his brand of Organic Modernism -- stay tuned for more evolution.
Check out this video on CP directed adn produced by Monica Rodonziski for Philly NPR/PBS station WHYY YouTube channel Movers and Makers series: https://youtu.be/QVyp8P32URI