The Light at the Middle of the Tunnel


Weaned on rock concert lighting in San Francisco, Leni Schwendinger abandoned Haight Ashbury in the early 80's for the new art frontier of TriBeCa, discovering in the process that there was more to lighting design than counting lumens. Lighting has become, for her, a public realm extending into community activism. Her canvases now are dark urban spaces and long tunnels – and where better to find these than in the concrete of New York?

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State(ment) of the Art:
Putting Design on the Table



Tony Whitfield is a designer who merges his art with his conscience. Starting out as a fine artist, he finds that there are equally strong statements to be made in the design world. Working with a company -- run by a woman -- in Guyana, Tony is designing sustainable furniture which will soon be found in Aveda stores across the country.

His accomplishments notwithstanding, Tony laments the interconnected and self-perpetuating inner circles of the design world. And as chair of Parsons School of Design Product Department, he helps guide the emerging talents that may break - or break into - that world.

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Why Visual Seltzer?

To receive notices when we post new interviews,

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From a designer's perspective, there is no other place like New York. The constant stimulation, the fast pace, the lack of space, the creativity all make New York an exciting and difficult environment to be a designer.

Like few other places in the world, we have a density and critical mass of people working in virtually every known – and some unknown – areas of design.

Through an interview format, Visual Seltzer will look at and talk with members of that critical mass: industrial designers and graphic artists, architects and fashion designers, animators and jewelry designers. Not the standard "what do you do?" interview, but more specifically a look at what the intersection of the artist and the city means. Would their work be different (or there at all) if they were working some place else? Is it the resources of the city? Is it the people? Is it the urgency and survival?

We're going to talk with some of the people who aren't yet on the covers of ID or New York Magazine; and some people and ideas that are maybe still below the radar.

We're going to look not just at individual designers, but at the intersections of the designer and the city, and at designer and community as well. Collaboration, influence, support.

The medium of the web will let us present the interviews in varying forms. In addition to print style interviews, we'll be bringing images and drawings, animations, links and audio as we get this all figured out.

We'll try to present new interviews every few weeks. If you have suggestions for interviewees – designers you'd like to know more about – please let us know.

Editors:
Lori Greenberg (lori@visualseltzer.com)
David Bergman (david@visualseltzer.com)