From visual wood sculptures to practical furniture pieces, “Evanston Woods II” featured wood in many forms. Works by six local designers and makers filled the Space 900 Gallery Friday through Sunday for the show.
Located on Dempster Street, Space 900 offers opportunities for artists — members and non-members alike — to showcase their work. According to member artist Todd Anderson, the gallery features shows by non-member artists about a third of the time.
“Evanston Woods II” was organized by Chicago woodworker Paul Segedin, who said the show was about reaching the public with makers’ works. Segedin said that while he talked a lot in college about controlling the means of production, he later realized that wasn’t enough; he also had to control the means of distribution.
“We want to remind people that handmade furniture is out there,” Segedin said. “It’s really hard to find in Chicago. There’s a lot of good makers here, but not a lot of ways to find it.”
Segedin displayed several of his own pieces in the gallery. He got into woodworking, which he described as his “third or fourth career,” a little more than a decade ago.
Local artist Madeline Usher showed a variety of pieces in the show. Though Usher began doing art professionally about four years ago, she said making art has been an “obsession” throughout her life.
“I’m at my studio whenever I’m awake and not at my day job,” she said.
Usher’s background is in woodworking, largely influenced by her father’s shop filled with metal and woodworking tools while she was growing up.
Most of her pieces include wood as a material, but Usher has also evolved to include other materials, such as her sculpture “I Wish You Could Join Me Up Here.”
The sculpture, which was displayed in “Evanston Woods II,” is made of wood, copper, beads, acrylic paint, acrylic sheets and watercolor paint. Usher said the piece reflects the feeling when a person is finding success in their life while their friends are going through rough times and the desire to have their friends join them.
Usher finds materials for her work all over, she said, including at a lumber yard and even from trees cut down near CTA tracks.
She was not the only maker to make use of downed trees. Local maker and architect Len Koroski displayed a coffee table made from a tree that had been cut down at the corner of Oak Street and Maple Street in Winnetka.
Koroski started woodworking about five years ago, when he no longer had to commute to work during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an architect, Koroski compiled books of sketches and ideas for furniture and buildings, he said, so he decided to start building some of them.
He collaborated with Mui Baltrunas, a master wicker, on a bench in the show. Koroski built the bench, and Baltrunas did Danish cord weaving for it.
As a master wicker, Baltrunas said he works on everything from museum renovations to original designs. In addition to the bench, he had a pair of chairs originally from Jamaica in the show.
His work can take up to a couple of weeks, depending on the size and material of the piece, he said.
“It’s meditative,” Baltrunas said. “You can’t get distracted, you have to keep your focus and you get into a rhythm.”
According to Segedin, many of the featured makers and designers spend a lot of time creating in a solitary environment.
Thus, it was exciting to be able to show his work in “Evanston Woods II,” he said.
“Making it isn’t good enough,” Segedin said. “It really needs to be out in the world.”
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