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Religious Benches of Wood Sculptor Francis Cape at Manhattan's Murray Guy Gallery

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Penelope Green
The wood sculptor Francis Cape, top, at the Murray Guy Gallery on
West 17th Street, where he is showing his latest work, “Utopian Benches.”
NEW YORK---Francis Cape is a British-born master woodworker and sculptor, who for the past few years has been building and exhibiting benches inspired by examples from 19th-century intentional communities, both religious and secular. In his book, “We Sit Together: Utopian Benches From the Shakers to the Separatists of Zoar,” out this month from Princeton Architectural Press ($24.95), Mr. Cape writes enticingly of this vestigial Gothic point, “a small physical sign of the larger unseen life.” His book is an engaging tour of craft, technology and community. [link]

Murray Guy Gallery: "FRANCES CAPE: Utopian Benches" in Manhattan through (Ends Aug. 2) 453 West 17th Street New York, NY, 212-463-7372, murrayguy.com
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Jonathon Keats | Forbes said…
The Shakers made their benches light, to be pushed away during ecstatic worship. The Harmonists built their benches long, to strengthen communal bonds while they awaited Christ’s return. The Inspirationists made benches with removable legs, to be dismantled when members were expelled from yet another village. One of the most distinctive qualities of utopian communities is their ubiquitous use of benches as instruments of communal gathering. Francis Cape may be the first person to physically investigate how different designs facilitated different social practices. A master woodworker, Cape has rebuilt signature benches from a dozen utopian communities, from the 18th century Ephrata Cloister to the Twin Oaks commune founded in 1967. A small gathering of those benches is currently on view at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2013/07/18/change-the-world-with-a-chair-carpenter-francis-cape-shows-his-utopian-benches-at-the-museum-of-arts-and-design/
Thu Jul 25, 09:56:00 AM EDT
Ernest Disney-Britton said…
What a great name for a book, "We Sit Together."
Thu Jul 25, 01:47:00 PM EDT
Roberta Smith | NYTimes said…
Francis Cape’s latest work is an extraordinary gathering of faith-based furniture — further proof that God actually may be in the details. The 17 benches here are meticulous copies of backless benches built and used in communal, mostly religious societies in North America from the 18th-century to the present. If St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome represents one end of the spectrum of faith-based design, these benches must surely be the other. They form a revealing meditation on design as history and expression; a thoroughly informative seminar on joinery, scale, proportion, comfort (best appraised by sitting); and a sidebar covering topics like decoration or lack thereof, the added stability of crossbars and the use of symmetry (a few benches have obvious fronts, most don’t).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/arts/design/francis-cape-utopian-benches.html
Sat Jul 27, 12:27:00 PM EDT
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