Still lingering on the attractions of the portrait, so I thought I’d have a go myself.  I’ve selected one of my unsuspecting friends, Jan, as the first guinea pig.

Meet my friend, Jan Flook, industrial designer, ranconteur and king of the rubbish dump.  Jan is passionate about transforming what other people call rubbish into high-end art pieces.  This is one of his latest creations: a light fixture made for the presentation of the 2010 National Excellence Awards of the Illuminating Engineering Society, and all from the lids of baked bean tins.

While he usually prefers to use only found rubbish, for this piece he supplemented some naturally-occurring tins, as it were, with new unused tins.  Even a man devoted to his craft needs some variety in his diet.

*****

Since the age of seven when he built a bicycle from bits of scrap, Jan’s been fired by the possibilities of used objects.  Used objects call to him and move him in a way new objects do not.  And he believes he’s not alone; many of us are buying new objects that don’t call to us either.

One aspect of recycled materials that appeals to Jan is the energy already embodied in it.  He wants to salute that energy, and shepherd it into something new.  He thinks of himself as a “mechanic,” someone who’s finding performance, or refreshing and tuning what’s already there.  This view contrasts with that of many manufacturers who look on recycled materials as simply another source of raw material with which to start the whole manufacturing cycle again.

A second aspect of recycled materials is that they can provide greater scope for originality, paradoxically, than raw materials.

Many artists have pointed to this phenomenon, what we might call the “freedom through restriction” effect.  Poets, for example, use the restriction of certain traditional forms of composition (eg, sonnet, haiku) and rhythm (iambic pentameter) to create something that would not have been possible with an entirely blank slate.  In Jan’s case, the found object’s materiality gives him something to respect and work with; to act, in a way, as a sort of collaborator.

*****

Traditionally, Jan says, there’s been a big divide in the field of industrial design.  On leaving design school, one is obliged to choose between car design or product design, and thereafter, the die is pretty much cast.  Those in car design stay in car design, those in product design, in product design.  So Jan is unusual in having worked in car design and product design.  Not many young design graduates, however, could have had his combination of naïvety and bravado.

He tells the story of how he presented himself one day in the early 90s, fresh out of design school, to the Head of Car Styling at Alfa Romeo in Turin, on the slightest of distant connections.  He had a portfolio of three photos and nothing else.  What’s more, one of them was a humble wooden bowl.

Don’t look at the wood,

he confided to the Head as he passed over the portfolio.

So dazed was the Head at how he’d ended up trapped with this apparently lunatic young New Zealander, he could only ask weakly from time to time, “Do you know what we actually do here?”  Jan got the job, of course, and ended up working in car designers’ heaven.

A few years later he again leapt the divide when he used his patented job-seeking method to wear down the resistance of Bruce Fifield, the US head of the prestigious Milan design consultancy, Design Continuum.  Jan describes how he “hounded” Fifield to give him a start.  Fifield eventually bowed to the inevitable, and Jan turned up for his first day as Product Designer.  When describing his duties, Fifield asked idly,

Of course, you’re proficient on the Mac …

To which Jan replied, “Well, how hard can it be, my Dad’s got a Mac …”

Fifield must have wondered, just like the Alfa Head, how this had come to pass.

But Jan rewarded his trust and within six months had mastered Italian – which, of course, he hadn’t known either – had mastered all the design programs, and had designed some award-winning products.

*****

Since he returned to the Antipodes and set up in Australia, Jan has been using his design skills in the field of lighting, or luminaire, as it is officially known.  Luminaire, with its suggestion of state change – dark to light, flat glass to faceted crystal – no doubt appeals to the alchemist in him.  He mostly designs luxury luminaire for clients such as large corporations, hotels and exhibitions, though as his baked bean tin creation shows, there’s always room for the anti-luxe too.

*****

Images: courtesy of Jan Flook

To contact Jan, email him on jdotflook at iinetdotnetdotau