Gail Fredell
Biography
I am a fourth generation native Californian, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Architecture in 1974, and after four years of working as a general contractor, I returned to school and received my MFA in Woodworking and Furniture Design from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1980.
Since then I have pursued a career of studio furniture work, education and arts administration. I have maintained workshops in the Bay Area, the mountains of Colorado and North Carolina, and now Fall River, MA. I have taught extensively in workshop programs across the country, and from 1993 to 2001 I served as the Furniture Program Director at Anderson Ranch Arts Center near Aspen, CO.
In 2012 I was invited to teach in the Foundation Studies and Furniture Design Departments at RISD, and I have since then moved permanently to the area and continue to teach part-time at the College. I live in Westport Point, MA and work at the Smokestack Studios in Fall River, MA.
My furniture is in the permanent collections of SF MOMA, the Oakland Museum, The Fuller Craft Museum, Stanford University Memorial Chapel and The AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park.
I am currently a Faculty member in the Furniture Design and Foundation Studies departments at Rhode Island School of Design, and continue to design and build commissioned and speculative furniture work at Smokestack Studios in Fall River, MA.
Exhibits
Dedee Shattuck Gallery | October 1 - November 9, 2014 | Gail Fredell and Jean-Pierre Hebert
Artist Statement
I am a fourth generation native Californian, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. My father grew up in the high desert mining town of Jerome, AZ and my mother’s childhood was spent amongst the pine and redwood forests of Northern California. They both had a great love of the Sierras, the canyon lands and deserts of the Southwest, wide open spaces and most of all, the Pacific Ocean. Family vacations, from my perspective the highlight of my childhood, were spent skiing, hiking, hanging out at the beach and traveling on marvelously long road trips across the Western states.
My work is informed by this upbringing grounded in the natural landscapes of the West, a life-long interest in Japanese design, so abundant in the Bay Area, and by my undergraduate architecture studies at UC Berkeley. I design and execute projects ranging in scale and scope from functional, residential furniture to public sculpture installations, for both interior spaces and landscape settings.
I employ a vocabulary of minimal, architectural forms, and use a wide range of materials, primarily wood and steel. My aesthetic has consistently been driven by an affinity for articulated structure, the nature of functional objects in reference to time and ritual, and my desire to create fully resolved compositions of contrasting elements, work that is at peace within itself and resting quietly in its place.
