Architect's Valet, Alphonse Mattia. (Looking & Learning).

Alphonse Mattia was born in 1947. He received a BFA from Philadelphia College of Art (PCA) in 1969 and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1973. From the time he left art school, Mattia has had a distinguished career as a furniture maker and as a college teacher. Since 1990, he has been a faculty member in RISD's Furniture Design Department.

A Student and His Teachers

Mattia's love for building things can be traced to his childhood. Both his father and uncle were carpenters, and his mother made, among many other things, clothespin dolls. The family's activities were particularly significant to the young Mattia because of the virtual absence, of any formal art instruction before college. While in high school, he held a part-time job in a hobby shop, and it was the owners who recognized his passion for drawing and model making and encouraged him to apply to art school. Mattia's art professors have had a long-lasting influence upon his work. His interest in questioning the nature of furniture is directly related to the guidance of Dan Jackson at PCA.

Mattia's concern for the importance of construction techniques and wood technologies is attributable to his graduate studies at RISD with noted Danish furniture maker Tage Frid. The tension between the influences of Jackson and Frid is evident in Mattia's work, as it is simultaneously a challenge to traditional notions about furniture and a celebration of conservative ways of making it.

Source and Inspiration

The Architect's Valet is one of a limited edition of twelve begun in 1985. They are all quite similar to one another, with only minor variations from piece to piece. The RISD Museum was interested in acquiring one of them because they were first and foremost such visually striking objects; but in their debt to the traditional valet chair, a form with antecedents in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and mid-twentieth centuries, the Architect's Valet also fit the museum's interest in collecting contemporary art that speaks to the past. Additionally, the reference to architecture seemed especially appropriate, considering that this is a subject taught at RISD. Soon after the purchase of the chair, the museum acquired a 1950s valet chair by Danish cabinetmaker Hans Wegner in order to show both source and inspiration. The tall form of the Architect's Valet is also reminiscent of chairs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Architect's Valet

Mattia's chair represents items that can be commonly found on the desk of an architect. A six-foot-tall compass forms the back and rear legs. A seat of laminated bentwood resembles a sheet of paper, complete with architectural jottings, that ever so softly folds over the seat frame. The front legs are in the form of a sharpened pencil and a ruled square. The chair is made from a variety of exotic hardwoods, Delron, and painted wood. The Architect's Valet may at first glance appear to have been constructed almost effortlessly, but this is deceptive, for it is clear that such apparent effortlessness could only have been achieved because of Mattia's mastery of materials and woodworking skills. Indeed, the chair is exquisitely made. Mattia pays attention to the minutest of details, even those on surfaces not normally seen by the viewer, such as the underside of the seat.

Mattia is extraordinarily successful in his transformation of these simple drawing tools into an object that assumes human attributes and personality. The Architect's Valet brings to mind animated cartoon characters such as the clock and teapot from the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. The association with cartoons is especially appropriate, considering the fact that Mattia is animating furniture and introducing figurative content into a form previously lacking such color and animation. Through scale and color, Mattia infuses his own sense of humor into this chair. According to the artist, he wants his work to be accessible and is pleased if his work causes the viewer to smile. As we smile, we have to wonder whether we are actually looking at a practical object or a sculpture of a tall skeletal figure whose outstretched arms await the cover of a jacket.

Discussion Points

* Ask students to research the definition of the word valet and to suggest possible connections between the definition and the title of Mattia's chair.

* Ask students to identify chairs in which the form might be said to express a particular social or work-related role, e.g., a throne or a director's chair. Have them share their observations and then write an autobiographical poem from the standpoint of a particular type of chair.

* Ask students which of the following terms they think Mattia would prefer to be known by: artist, craftsperson, designer, or furniture maker. Have them give reasons for their choices.

* In which ways is the Architect's Valet similar to and different from a mass-produced chair displayed in any store showroom?

Activities

Elementary School 

Ask students whether they have a favorite chair. Ask them to describe what is special about this chair. Read Vera B. Williams' book A Chair for My Mother to the class and then ask students to use paint or colored markers to design a very special chair for a very special person they know. When finished, the designs could be glued to tag board and made to stand. Have students write on an index card the name of the person for whom they have designed their chair and how they have made it special.

Middle School

Alphonse Mattia animates his chairs--brings them to life--by thinking of the chair's back, arms, seat, legs, and feet as parts of the human body. His valet chairs are often brightly colored and look as though they could easily be found in a comic book or an animated movie. Have students research comic or animated movie characters and then, on a large sheet of paper, brainstorm ideas for a chair for a specific comic or movie character. Ask students to select the design that they feel most successfully expresses the personality of their character and then have them produce a large, finished, mixed-media drawing.

High School

In the Architect's Valet, Mattia uses a specific set of objects to represent a particular profession. Discuss what professions or individuals could be represented by other sets of objects. Ask students to develop preliminary designs for a chair that uses objects associated with a specific profession or a particular individual. As students brainstorm ideas, it is important that teachers encourage students to consider how the selected objects will make up the chair's back, arms, seat, legs, and feet and work together in a unified way. Using the preliminary designs as a basis, students may then be asked to use charcoal pencils, pastels, or oil pastels to produce a full-scale (life-size) drawing of the most promising design.

Resources

Cooke, E. S., Jr., New American Furniture: The Second Generation of Studio Furnituremakers. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.

Fiell, C., and P. Fiell, 1000 Chairs. New York: Taschen America, 1997.

Russell, F.; P. Garner; and J. Read, A Century of Chair Design. New York: Rizzolli, 1985.

Williams, V. B., A Chair for My Mother. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Paul Sproll is associate professor and head of the Department of Art Education at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. He would be interested in hearing from teachers who try out any of these ideas in the classroom. Contact him at [e-mail].