Raising art
Raising the status of art concepts.
Susan Christie describes herself and an artist and designer, with the line between each profession very much blurred. She finished her fine arts degree in 2016 and went on to found her own business, Formantics, where she explores her passion for challenging the concept of objects versus paintings.
“In art history, we are taught that painting was often seen as a ‘high brow’ thing to own and objects less so. I wanted to challenge this idea, and make both of those things more accessible to people.”
To display her ceramics and bring them to eye level where we would normally just see a painting hanging on the wall, Susan came up with her own specially designed floating shelves. She wanted a creative, unique way to display her ceramics so they’d take the same status as a painting on the wall.
Finding an ‘equally as creative-minded’ partner
The name ‘Formantics’ is a merge of the words ‘Form’ and ‘Antics’ - reflecting the nature of Susan’s work. She is playful in the form of her art and doesn’t limit herself when it comes to presentation. With her artwork being limited edition, she also likes her furniture to be unique, and she says that her home and studio contain many interesting designs.
“The greatest thing about working with Cutshop is the limitless potential to be creative and make absolutely anything. They say ‘you draw it, we’ll make it’, and it’s true!”
The Cutshop concept appealed to Susan because she liked the fact that there was lots of room for playfulness and experimentation when it came to materialising her ideas, and that the team could work with bespoke designs. Susan has been collaborating with Cutshop North Shore to help her with the production of her shelves for a long time now and has been impressed from day one.
Careful planning and collaboration
The simplicity of her circular design shelves meant that Dave’s workload was easy - all he needed was dimensions. To help with navigating costs - something super important for Susan to consider when it came to pricing the shelves for retailing to others - Dave made it clear how many shelves could be cut from one sheet of ply before going ahead.
This enabled Susan to see in advance how much she would need to spend and charge. In order for the shelves to appear to be ‘floating’, there was a little hole in the back of each one to help them be attached to the wall. The outcome looks beautiful and serves the vision Susan had.
In terms of service and turnaround time, Susan is super happy with how smoothly the process has run. She loves going back for more and claims the potential for artists and designers is enormous when it comes to manifesting their ideas with Cutshop. To see more of Susan’s crafts and creations, check out Formantics!
