Jonathan Truslove, I’m Not Bad #3 (ART, OBJECTS 2021)

Hand laid maple form-bent laminates with walnut inlay, sailing cord and stainless steel fixtures. Corsets have featured in the arts for hundreds of years: from European paintings of the sixteenth century, in opera and pantomime, Disney’s princesses and heroines, to Jean Paul Gaultier’s “Cone Bra” worn by Madonna in 1990. The making of a bespoke corset is an aesthetic art combined with structural engineering. My background is in art and design as well as building engineering, so exploring the overlap between corset-making and furniture-making revealed many similarities. Corsets and furniture must satisfy a requirement of function, yet both can and are elevated to the status of art. The corsetiere and the furniture-maker must both consider the anatomy and proportions of the user, the function the piece is to achieve, the grain and structural nature of the materials and its ability to be curved, bent and shaped. Both utilise a particular visual aesthetic and style to convey or conjure up emotion, make a statement, or achieve a function. Both have the capacity to arouse a deep sensory emotional meaning or tactile connection. Both use engineered hardware to provide support, strength and restraint, and both utilise specific tools-of-the-trade. Both require precision, both in the drawings or pattern-making, and in the craftsmanship of construction and the understanding of the performance of the materials used. A corset or a piece of furniture is made from dozens of individual pieces, joined together in specific ways unique to that seam or joint’s function, either permitting or restricting movement.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.