First Friday: February 2024
Inspiration & Updates from Brian Madden Studio
“Intention means every decision, from the most obviously significant to the seemingly mundane, matters. To do something with intentionality means to do it thoughtfully, with clear purpose and an eye on the desired result.”
Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
Intentionality has been the name of the game this month. Refining the details that complete a sculpture fit for an NFL legend, practicing the art of hosting prospective collectors, balancing art, design, career, life.
We’re into the darkest months of the year in this part of the world, and I’m leaning into a feeling of optimism here in San Francisco. The art community here is blossoming, and I’m starting to see the fruition of years of hard work emerging into the light.
The February edition of First Friday was intentionally curated to bridge the worlds of art, craft, design, and hospitality. I’ll share:
WHAT I’M MAKING: The NFLPA Players’ All-Pro Awards
WHAT I’M SHOWING: Bay Area Arts & Crafts Show - Sausalito Center for the Arts
WHAT I’M SEEING: FOG Art Fair - Claudia Wieser & The Art of Design Collecting
WHAT I’M READING: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
WHAT I’M HEARING: Wintry Mix & Doing Everything Different
You’re receiving First Friday because you’ve supported my artwork, visited my studio, or otherwise signed up to stay in touch. Thanks for being a part of this community!
WHAT I’M MAKING: NFLPA Players’ All-Pro Awards
While working at Nike, designing corporate interiors & curating custom art commissions, I often dreamed about using my own artistic skills to express myself on larger scales and create for brands. So I cherish every opportunity to partner with brands like Nike, EA Sports, and the NFL Players Association to elevate their brands through fine art installations, sculptural awards, and custom gifting experiences.
This past year, NFLPA reached out after seeing previous awards I created for EA Sports & the Professional Athletes Foundation, and commissioned me to envision & deliver a new award for The Players’ All-Pro, an end-of-season accolade given to the best NFL players across the league in each position, as voted on by their positional peers and on-field opponents.
I naturally gravitated towards marble as the basis for the awards, and worked with my team to create a set of 31 custom hand-built, polished, embellished nero marquina awards for each position’s recipient & the NFLPA Archives.
I also used the opportunity to create a unique award treatment for each recipient, illustrating a full set of playbook-inspired X’s & O’s with routes and moves, and then drawing from that set to create a personalized placard for each player’s team and role on the field.
While painting and assembling each award, we also added a deeper, more organic layer to the story by selecting the marble pattern on the back of the award to align with each player’s position.
Because of my background in experiential marketing design, I feel a draw to help my clients with every component, from the form of the award and the custom graphics on it, to the welcome card the players’ read first, to the custom box that presents the award, and the more rugged shipper box it all arrives in. The goal is to be intentional with every component.
Seeing my clients so pleased with the outcome and the NFL players so dazzled by the awards they’re receiving is what it’s all about. Because when I reflect on my creativity, it’s all about connection… with myself, and with others.
WHAT I’M SHOWING: Bay Area Arts & Crafts Show - Sausalito Center for the Arts
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be showing two special marble pieces in a group show celebrating the blurry line between Fine Crafts & Fine Art at the Sausalito Center for the Arts, from February 15 to March 15.
To quote curator Shiva Pakdel, “what is fine art in some cultures can be considered craft in other cultures, therefore, making the difference between the two expressions highly subjective… This exhibition features levels of skill, craftsmanship, materials, techniques, and creativity involved in making these unique objects from the Bay Area.”
One notable example of an influence of mine who occupied this blurry line was Ruth Asawa. Her iconic hanging woven wire sculptures were previously written off as craft before being highly celebrated today as fine art.
The two pieces I selected for the show both came from my ongoing creative practice of repurposing remnants from my pietra dura marble inlay art commissions and awards to create fine art. Simultaneously, they are a visual extension of the functional Fine Art & Craft commissions they came from, and the realization of the potential for the byproduct to become sculpture itself.
The works exist as a dialogue about the creative community we are building here in the Bay. The first, an airy, architectural ruin-like Carrara marble sculpture representing the destruction and rebuilding of what came before, with the narrative of the doom loop.
Fun fact: Remnant Object 005 was built from the actual remnants and the memories of my EA Sports Madden NFL 22 99 Club awards that went to players like Tom Brady, Travis Kelce, and Patrick Mahomes.
The second piece I’m showing is an earthy wall-hanging Travertine heart relief representing the optimism and heart of our rejuvenating art scene, alluding to community and brighter days ahead.
Fun fact about the Travertine Remnant Heart Relief: it was created with the same stone used to create a custom pietra dura Vans sneaker cheeseboard commission.
The Bay Area Arts & Crafts Exhibition at Sausalito Center for the Arts runs from February 15 until March 15. I invite you to join me for the opening Reception: Saturday, February 24, 5:00 - 7:30pm. You can reserve tickets here. Hope to see you there!
WHAT I’M SEEING: FOG Art Fair - Claudia Wieser & The Art of Design Collecting
A dear friend and collector was recently passing through San Francisco, and his one-day visit gave us a brief window to meet up at FOG Design+Art, San Francisco’s preeminent international fine art & design fair.
I’m working with this collector and his partner on a multi-year art and design commission for their home, and there were two experiences at the show that were particularly inspiring for this work: Claudia Wieser’s immersive takeover of the Jessica Silverman Gallery booth, and The Art of Design Collecting, a live conversation between Michael Jefferson, International Senior Specialist in Design at Christie's, and Abigail Turin, founder of KallosTurin, an international architecture & interior design studio.
I’ve been a big fan of Claudia Wieser since 2021 when I noticed parallels in her bold ceramic tile artwork after creating my marble inlay 99 Club pylon design for EA Sports. I admire her range of creative output and the visual world she’s created to explore and expand with each new project. I feel a kinship with her detailed use of material, pattern, and color, with its allusions to furniture and functionality. And when I look at her work, I see a practice that nods to a storied art history while looking ahead to a bright future.
It’s been a fun challenge to explore and explain this life as an artist and a designer. Working on a multi-year interiors commission with art and design components has been a great opportunity to look at the project from both sides of my practice.
It’s also bringing me back to optimistic memories of my industrial design education, looking up to iconic designers and their designs for inspiration, and now for potentially incorporating into the interior spaces we are creating.
During The Art of Design Collecting conversation at FOG, architect and interior designer Abigail Turin walked us through her 4 principles for collecting Design:
Personal Take: Our collections are an extension of ourselves, reflections of who we are and how we live. Seek to understand who you are as a collector, how you want to live, what kind of pieces you gravitate towards, and why. A key example: Ronnie Sassoon, whose book Selections describes her collecting philosophy.
Design Collecting is Art Collecting: Celebrating a well-designed, well-loved lamp, chair, or table is just as meaningful as cherishing a painting or a sculpture– the only difference is that you just might eat your dinner on one while admiring the other from afar (or vice versa 😈).
Furniture = Mobile: In Italy, the word used for furniture, mobile, means that objects are not meant to sit fixed forever, but are meant to be moved around freely within otherwise fixed (usually extremely vintage) architecture. Don’t be afraid to rearrange your things!
Fewer, Better Things: While admittedly aspirational, Abigail argues that every single object in a space should resonate with meaning and spark joy. Even something as mundane as a chest of drawers should align with your vision for the space, support your lifestyle, and reflect your creative tastes.
I loved bringing the design student in me along for the ride at FOG, getting inspired and seeing the potential across the spectrum of art and design for creating meaningful spaces. I was also tickled by Michael’s parting note, urging everyone to cherish the patina and evidence of life that naturally comes with a well-loved design piece - “Don’t polish and repaint your pieces within an inch of their lives!”
You can watch the recording of The Art of Collecting Design here.
WHAT I’M READING: Unreasonable Hospitality
I alluded to it in my January First Friday playlist, but I am obsessed with The Bear. Binge-ing both seasons, I was especially moved by the transformational episode Forks, in season 2 because it celebrates the heart and soul of hospitality. It underscored the service-oriented focus of my career and introduced me to a book I’ve been recommending all month: Unreasonable Hospitality, by Will Guidara.
In Unreasonable Hospitality, “Will Guidara chronicles the lessons in service and leadership he has learned over the course of his career in restaurants. He is the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, which under his leadership received four stars from the New York Times, three Michelin stars, and in 2017 was named #1 on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.”
Guidara describes dancing on the fine line between often-contradictory restaurant smart (creative, freeform, nimble) and corporate smart (structured, supportive, systematic) cultures, and shares stories of setting and achieving lofty goals, leading and empowering high performing teams, all while having fun and making it cool to care.
Whether you’re in the hospitality industry or not, I’m sure you’ll find some wisdom to suit your palate.
WHAT I’M HEARING: Wintry Mix / Doing Everything Different
The moody weather we’ve been getting in San Francisco this winter has had me looping introspective songs and keeping my ears open for old favorites that fit the mood.
A reminder that First Friday Playlist can only consist of songs I’ve heard, received, discovered, (or rediscovered) out in the world, songs overheard at (coffee) shops, restaurants, bars, galleries, or received from friends IRL and online.
This month was also made brighter by a fun conversation with the Doing Everything Different podcast, which went live earlier this month. You can listen at the link above and watch the recording of episode #23 here.
Take care and talk soon,
Brian
brian@brianbmadden.com
“Often, the perfect moment to give someone more responsibility is before they’re ready.”
Will Guidara, from Unreasonable Hospitality