Photos by Shelby Loebker
The first year of SCAD’s Alumni atelier program has already brought waves of talented alumni back to SCAD to create innovative masterpiece projects. Bradley Bowers is an atelier ambassador currently residing and working on a tableware collection in Forsyth House.
Bowers’ atelier commission combines skills from his career with a unique design process. He spoke eloquently about this contrast, developing long metaphors to explain his thought process. Perhaps his ease came from his time on camera on Ellen’s Design Challenge or because, as he said, he had just explained the project at lunch.
Bowers graduated from SCAD in 2010 with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in industrial design and received his masters from SCAD in furniture design in 2012. He launched his career in product design straight from SCAD and now runs a Miami-based furniture design studio he founded with fellow SCAD graduate Francesco Vasi.
He is making a six-piece collection of porcelain tableware, but the emphasis of the project is in the process and experimentation over its final result. Bowers said the project is about, “getting rid of that concept that I have to know the answer before it happens…so instead of me going ‘oh, the vegetable platter will look like this,’ through the software I’m designing the conditions that could lead to an ideal vegetable platter.”
Bowers uses a Rhino software plug-in to create these conditions, putting potential dimensions into an algorithm that then provides him with all of the possible shapes based on the dimensions. Bowers has combed through hundreds of these printed thumbnail shapes to find ones that have the potential for his collection. Bowers explained, “I’m creating those conditions, and those conditions lead to something where I look at it – and because I am still a designer – I can look at the output and I can go ‘I like this one…It’s no longer about style or aesthetic; they may look a certain way, but they look a certain way because of the conditions.”
Of course, it’s important that Bowers create the actual collection – and not just for the atelier exhibition. He said, “I think what I have the luxury of here is transforming what could really easily be a beautiful theory, into an actuality. I can make it a reality…so people can pick it up and feel it and go, ‘oh, OK.’ They can love it or hate it, but at least they can engage with it.” Right now, Bowers is at the edge of making his ideas a tangible reality; he’s created most of his molds and it ready to start to slip casting the actual dishes.
Bowers said he was initially unsure about returning to SCAD but, once his proposal was accepted, the Alumni atelier program was too good to pass up. He said, “I’m all about embracing what comes your way…So I went with it. I’m glad I did. I’m so glad I did. And you very rarely get an opportunity to explore unencumbered and I really like that.”
Students and faculty can hear Bradley Bowers speak at 5:30 p.m. May 10 at the SCAD Museum of Art and his collection will be on display from May 20 – June 5 during atelier Vitrine, the atelier installation at ShopSCAD.
To learn more about the Alumni atelier program, check out our original article and stay tuned for profiles on the other atelier ambassadors at SCAD Savannah!
Written and photographed by Shelby Loebker.
