Tommy SIMPSON
Living in a World I Created
🔨🏡🌻💕
Living in a World I Created 🔨🏡🌻💕
Enjoy our new movie about Tommy Simpson… Living in a World I Created and please share it with all your friends (and enemies)!!!
Various movie posters and promotional items from Tommy Simpson Living in A World I Created.
Photos from our premiere screening of Tommy Simpson Living in A World I Created at UNCA STEAM Studios on June 3, 2022 in Asheville NC.
Join us for the premiere screening!
We are very excited to announce and invite you to the premiere screening of our new short documentary film Tommy Simpson Living in a World I Created on Friday June 3, 2022 from 6-8 pm at UNC Asheville's STEAM Studio in Asheville, NC. This is the public premiere of our film about the artist Tommy Simpson which has been in production over the last 2 years in NC.
There will be an introduction by the film’s producers and Why Make? Podcast hosts Robb Helmkamp and Erik Wolken and the Editor & Director of Photography Nic Beery, of Beery Media. Following the screening a Q & A discussing the film with the artist Tommy Simpson, artist and educator Brent Skidmore, Erik and Robb will round out the evening.
As many of you know Tommy Simpson is an artist, woodworker, sculptor, furniture maker, painter and poet – a true original in the art world. Internationally recognized, he works in nearly every medium making artwork that transcends craftsmanship, fine art, and whimsy. In each work of art, Simpson “puzzles together” his personal and cultural references into a signature blend of joyfulness and subtle commentary.
“The ultimate goal,” Tommy says, “is to bring the artwork to life, so that the viewer can identify the human spirit behind the work, and experience its poetry.”
We have teamed up with Brent Skidmore and STEAM Studios to screen the movie. UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studios is an educational makers space engaging the next generation of makers, engineers, artists and entrepreneurs located in the RAMP Studios on 821 Riverside Drive Suite 140 Asheville, NC 28801. For further information about STEAM Studios go to https://steamstudio.unca.edu/
This event is absolutely free, with no admission fee, and is open to the public. Donations, aiding productions costs of the film, will be graciously accepted and tee shirts, stickers & related merchandise will be available to purchase. Please make sure to park behind the south building of RAMP Studios and use entrance C.
Keep on making… and listening,
Robb and Erik 16 May 2022
The Tommy Simpson Documentary
So what is this? Well, it’s a conversation and short film with one of the groundbreaking artists of the modern studio furniture movement… Tommy Simpson. Tommy’s work has a whimsical bent, which belies a serious approach to making for someone who has created a universe of unique objects in every media you can think of. Simpson, along with Wendell Castle, cracked the furniture atom with their 1966 exhibition in New York called Fantasy Furniture declaring furniture was no longer solely about form and function.
This interview also marks a special moment for the Why Make crew. We’ve been asked by the Furniture Society to do a short documentary about Tommy’s life and career. It’ll be our first film. Film you say? What do you guys know about film? You barely know how to do a podcast! True. And for that reason we have brought on board documentary filmmaker Nic Beery of Beery Media, an old friend of the podcast, to help us with this project. Please take a look at the trailer we produced from our October 2021 visit with Tommy in Asheville, NC.
And of course we also need help from you, listeners, and fellow artists… to produce the film, and to present another full year of Why Make interviews. Please become a Why Make patron. Your donation will go towards the equipment, travel, Squadcast Recording fees, and other materials that help to bring the Why Make projects to life. As always, we’ll happily continue to donate our time, adventurously painting pictures in words, sound and film of the wonderful makers that occupy our field. Our goal is to raise $3,000 for the 2022 season of Why Make. We really hope you’ll consider a contribution by donating at any level that works for you, beginning at $5 a month. Just click the Patreon button at the bottom of the page.
If you donate at the $20 a month level, your entire contribution will go towards producing the Tommy Simpson documentary. And yes, at this level we bring on the swag… including a Why Make t-shirt, which you can see modeled by Robb, Nic and Erik below, a handcrafted, palm-sized, wooden heart made by Tommy, and a credit in the film as a sustaining funder.
