Greetings friends of Folded Poetry!

I’m writing this newsletter from an Alice in Wonderland themed teahouse in downtown Milan, Italy. I’m here for MILAN DESIGN WEEK and am delighted to share that I will be showcasing my work at the world-renown Salone di Mobile trade show starting tomorrow!

Last Fall I applied and was accepted into the prestigious Salone Satellite program which specifically offers the opportunity for selected innovators under 35 years old to showcase our work within the famous Salone di Mobile tradeshow.

Travel to Milan went remarkably smoothly, and I even ran into a pick-up soccer friend on the plane on our way to Frankfurt! It was lovely to see a friendly face during international travel. 

Milan is known for fashion and design, and it shows! I had two notable first impressions of the city:

Yesterday I spent the entire day setting up my booth at the Milan Fairgrounds which is an architectural spectacle designed by Massimiliano Fuksas (shown above right).

In an effort to minimize shipment costs, I produced works which would disassemble and fit inside my checked baggage. I snapped the below image of myself leaving the Milan airport with two weeks worth of personal items and the entire contents of my booth within the baggage shown below. (Thanks Mom for the luggage set!)

Having already completed an entire dry-run installing each of the works for photography in my home prior to my departure for Milan, my booth set-up went incredibly smoothly. Special thanks to the incredible Matt Ramey for capturing the professional photographs showcased in this email. 

Without further ado, I’m delighted to share my brand new small but mighty collection of works which break the geometric rules of my brand as the pieces are all created using CURVES!

I’m also utilizing a material entirely new to Folded Poetry and one which I hope resonates with my Italian industry friends: Leather!

First up we have my Curls design. I had the idea for this design while relaxing on a Saturday night and the next morning I was surprised that it took me only two tests using paper to produce what you see below.

This is a single module rotated 90 degrees and joined with its neighbors to create a sculptural expression which can expand endlessly in all directions. Below is this design using two-toned black and white paper.

In order to help resolve the design problems which arise while exploring use of an entirely new material, I employed the help of my friends Emily and Jake at And Other Works… a prototyping and architectural studio in downtown Durham – and conveniently a six minute drive from my home / studio.

They produced an incredibly elegant solution utilizing leather and ball-head studs to join the Curls to themselves, each other, and the wall.

I absolutely love the final product! The installation is simple and straightforward. This two-tone leather has such a classic look, I can see this being successful in so many different types of applications – hospitality, commercial, and residential alike! 

Next up are my Domes design! I produced the below paper studies of this design well over a year ago and they sat on my shelf collecting dust until recently, when I recognized them to be an excellent candidate for production using leather!

These Domes utilize the same ball-head stud joining mechanism as Curls and create awesome individually mounted sculptural wall elements.

Could you imagine these covering an entire wall?   

Massive thank you again to my friends at And Other Works for the prototyping and production support on this brand new leather design!

Finally, we have the iridescent acrylic Bubble design. I initially prototyped this design using paper back in 2022 while exploring the use of acoustic felt which I diverted from landfill. As an interesting design constraint, this acoustic felt had a grid of holes already included, which forced me to create a design which integrated the hole pattern. 

The Bubble design didn’t end up working out for that particular material, but I kept it in mind for production using acrylic. The missing link was the mounting mechanism, which I resolved using a standard binder clip and small holes included on the back of each component part.

I’m so proud to have finally produced a full-scale installation of this design, for which previously I had only made sample-size works. Shout out to BAN artwork for laser cutting these parts for me!

Wish me luck this week! I’m eager to not only make more business connections but also meet more of my design peers who are truly from ALL OVER THE WORLD. 

 Sending love from Milano!