Jeremy Edwards gets a buzz from seeing how people dress, behave, and walk down the street-from country to country. The English designer lives and teaches in Paris, France, after spending his life living and working across Europe.
This semester, his work as a designer has brought him to a new country for observation, the United States. He is showing his latest work at the Area Gallery at USM and teaching sculpture and design at the University of Maine at Farmington.
His international career has included exhibitions from Stockholm, Sweden, to Milan, Italy, and today, to Portland.
“When I was putting up the show in August, the position at UMF opened up, and they kindly asked me to teach there,” Jeremy says, now having spent his first two weeks in rural Maine.
“I’d been invited to do the show in Portland only a few months before, which isn’t much time, so I did something a little different than my usual design work here.”
His show, titled ‘Repeat’, showcases fifteen lamps, made from tree branches and various other materials. This work is more experimental, intuitive, and more spontaneous than his traditional pieces, which are manufactured and mass-produced.
These mass-produced designs include furniture and lighting, and inventive, purpose-serving objects. But for this show he’s made each piece individually, taking everyday objects and looking at them in new ways.
“There are three elements to these lamps: the support, the light source, and the shade. I experimented with each, some you focus on the light source alone, there’s one with hanging lines in which you’re drawn to the lampshade. In all the lamps, you see a reflection of 1 of the 3 parts. It’s called ‘Repeat’ because the same basic elements, this lamp made from the fork of a tree are repeated fifteen times.”
Jeremy sees himself as a designer, and doesn’t consider himself an artist although he recognizes a crossover of the 2 disciplines.
This crossover interests Jan Piribeck, head of USM’s art department. “We’ll be hosting a round table discussion between faculty of Maine art schools, including Jeremy, to talk about the role of design in the contemporary art curriculum.”
The USM art program is focused on fine arts, without applied arts like graphic design or furniture design.
“In this country,” Jan says, “the reality is that there is a strong distinction between fine and applied art, though the line has been blurred by the work of contemporary artists.” In France, she wonders, do these black-and-white distinctions exist, or is there fluidity?
Jan hopes that this discussion, with input from Jeremy, this European faculty, will be the first step in looking closely at what USM is doing now, comparing it to what’s being done “in our own backyard, at UMF, and in Europe, and evaluating our curriculum, an ongoing process. I think this will set the stage for the direction we’ll take over the next few years,” she says.
Jeremy, who’s spent his first few weeks in Farmington by now, he jokes that he feels like something of an alien in the small community.
“I have this funny accent, dress differently, which I quite like, and am struck by my own differences. In Paris, this anonymous city, if someone bumps you on the sidewalk, you can shout and swear at them and know you’ll never see them again. Here everyone sees every move you make and you’re probably in a class with them. It’s so strange.”
Jeremy will give a talk on 3 of his projects, including the current ‘Repeat’ at Robie Andrew’s Burnham Lounge at USM in Gorham on October 3 at 1:00. A reception will be held at the Area gallery on October 2 from 5-7 p.m. to celebrate his work and meet the designer.
You can view Jeremy’s work online at www.jeremy-edwards.com.
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An exchange program between faculty and students from Maine universities and art schools and universities in Western France, where Jeremy Edwards teaches at another school, has been key in inviting the designer to give a visiting artist lecture at USM.
‘Project Maine France Quebec’ is the initiative that started in 2006, when USM art professor Rose Marasco was one of the delegations who traveled to schools in France and selected and established cooperation agreements with several French schools.
Since then, Rose has gone on sabbatical at a French, and in 2007 Jan Piribeck did a workshop. There is a USM art student currently spending a year there, and 2 Maine students have gone before him. In the spring, there is a French student who’ll be studying at USM. Jeremy is the first faculty member from France to teach in Maine.
For more information about the exchange, visit
http://www.maine.edu/system/asa/IntlOppsStudentsPMFQ.php