Gladys native's furniture mixes form, function

When Kent Perdue, 22, creates furniture, he bends the line between art and function.

His pieces often possess a “museum-like quality,” as he describes it, meant for the gallery rather than the living room.

Perdue conceives stories for his furniture, such as the wooden table that expands from a single surface into a long, three-tiered table. As it expands, it gets more skeletal and bare.

To Perdue, the table might have belonged to someone “getting by with what they have,” but that’s just one interpretation.

“I want to leave it open-ended so it’s up to the viewer to decide,” he says.

Perdue, a native of Gladys and graduate of Rustburg High school, recently received the Windgate Fellowship for his art, a national award presented to 10 graduating undergraduate students by the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, a University of North Carolina center which began from an effort to celebrate hand-crafted art.

The fellowship includes a $15,000 award that Perdue plans to use to travel to Japan to study and document traditional architecture, furniture and Asian art forms. He will use the remaining money for workshops to hone his technical skills, supplies and professional development projects.

Perdue graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in May with a BFA in craft and material studies. His focus was furniture design and woodworking.

His path to furniture and woodworking stretches back to childhood. As a boy, he learned the value of working with his hands from his father, a hand engraver.
Growing up in the country, he would make kites, boats, and bows and arrows.

“When we were little, we weren’t video game kids. ... We’d always be making stuff,” Perdue says.

During high school, Perdue worked at the Estate Specialists in downtown Lynchburg, where he was surrounded by furniture and antique objects. He sold watercolor paintings at the store, and when he entered VCU, he thought he was going to major in painting and print making.

But his plan soon changed, when he realized he rather work in three dimensions than two.

“I just realized that making actual objects was what I liked, building stuff and just working with your hands.”

In addition to functional and sculptural furniture, Perdue makes jewelry and other sculptural forms. His art explores how things work.

“My current work is a combination of fast-paced experimental techniques and turning new materials into imaginary aged relics,” he writes in his artist statement.

After graduation, Perdue moved to Gatlinburg, Tenn., for a year-long artist residency at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. He is one of four resident artists who will spend the year creating art, teaching, taking seminars and networking artists from around the world.

Perdue compares the experience to the Hollywood of the arts and crafts world.

“It’s like wanting to be an actor, and going somewhere where all these movie stars are walking around you all the time,” Perdue says of the visiting artists who come to Arrowmont to teach.

The year at Arrowmont gives Perdue a chance to look toward the future and decide whether he wants to apply to graduate school now, in a few years, or forego it completely. In the meantime, he will focus on honing his skills and continuing to create.

To see more examples of Perdue’s work, visit his blog at www.kentperdue.blogspot.com.