Roy McMakin

Roy McMakin is one of my favorite artists. He currently lives up in Seattle and makes functional objects (mostly). Besides furniture and houses he makes sculpture, photographs, drawings, and landscape projects. I like the way he thinks: “I don’t know where this came from, but over the weekend I was thinking about a way to describe the stuff that sort of rises to the surface in my life and may people’s lives. The objects that you choose to want to look at and have around. And It occurred to me that a fabulous name for a vintage secondhand store would be “Cream of the Crap.” I guess I’m saying there’s always some object that gives the illusion of somehow making things better and either kind of clarifies something in my life, or feels like a treasure in a treasure hunt, where something is hidden away and lost, and then I discover and see the transcendence within the object.” His beloved Chihuahua Joan was the model for Lamp with a Bronze Joan (2008) which is a lamp coming out of a bronze cast of his dog. Another piece of his I really appreciate is Untitled (2008), which is a small chest of drawers with one drawer that sits atop of the chest because it doesn’t fit.