Matchmakers : Designers Bill Murray and Tommy Chambers have paired pieces of art and functional furniture to create a unified yet eclectic exhibit at OCMA.
How do you combine art, artifacts and furniture in various colors and textures and still have a homogeneous look? After all, eclectic is good, garage sale is not.
Bill Murray and Tommy Chambers, an interior design and architect team, embrace the challenge of combining sometimes disparate items to make a beautiful space.
And when the Exhibitionists
Council of the Orange County Museum of Art asked them to take 56 artists’ works and “interior design” them in 6,000 square feet of space at the Newport Beach museum, Murray and Chambers volunteered to do the job.
Much as they would do with a client’s art collection, Murray and Chambers divided the artists’ works into vignettes according to size and type of art. They looked for common elements to unify the space, organizing the artists’ works into groups.
“If it’s done correctly, you could have a ceramic artwork next to neon art next to paintings, even those as powerful as works by L.A. artist Drew Fitzgerald,” said Chambers, who with Murray has designed for Candice Bergen, Cindy Costner and Norman Lear from their Los Angeles studio.
“Fifty percent of the art is functional: furniture, pottery, accessories, birdbaths,” Murray said. “We used the exterior walls for the paintings, and the open areas for the ‘rooms.’ We tried to organize the works to meet the artists’ needs, since art is the focus here.”
The team’s basic design principle is to create simple, honest lines in a background that allows people to add and subtract furniture and art as they choose.
The OCMA exhibit didn’t make it easy for them. The art ranges from funky--bar stools that are miniature rooms with moving parts inside the chairs by Santa Ana artist Dan Stephens--to elegant--carved wood furniture with clean, sleek lines by Santa Barbara artist Victor Di Novi.
To add to the challenge, they had to work with such diverse pieces as neon works by David Svenson and Kim Koga, both from Los Angeles; lamps made out of the “junk” of modern culture by Joan Robey of L.A.; Irvine artist Patricia Hagerman’s feminist ironing boards; and Laguna Niguel artist Lynn Mattson’s “memory ware,” vases and teapots made from broken pottery.
There are also Laguna Beach artist Frank Smart’s strong, slender-lined furniture made of nonferrous metals and Brea artist Mary Burns’ ceramic tables, as seen in Wolfgang Puck’s restaurants.
“There are some fun things, like the ceramic birdbaths by Northern California artist Catherine Schmid-Maybach and L.A. artist Jilda Schwartz, and some more serious pieces like ones by Northern California artist Michael Shuler, who creates exquisite wooden bowls, some only 2 or 3 inches high. He’s in the American Craft Collection in the White House,” Murray said. “Mobiles will be in every room, and Los Angeles artist Nancy Mooslin is even painting a piano.”
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To unify the collection, Chambers and Murray used a single background color--white.
“There were too many artists to deal with to worry about different colors,” Murray said. “But space planning was very important. With so much going on, things had to remain simple so as not to have a carnival atmosphere.”
To solve the space problem, they used a series of 15 boat-like “sails” of fabric in a lightweight, cotton gauzy fabric to divide the voluminous area into three galleries.
These graceful, all-white dividers suspended on poles create loose, subtle curves that don’t block out the different spaces, but instead lure people from one area to another by giving the sense of movement and shadow.
“The sails are almost like pinwheels,” Murray said. “They give height and interest, besides giving the division many artists needed.”
Lighting is so important to art that Murray and Chambers added to the museum lighting by using color gels to create different moods. Some artists brought their own lights, such as small pin lights, for special effects.
“If a piece is good, it should work in any environment. Sometimes because of improper placement, an important piece is totally overlooked,” Chambers said. “For the homeowner, it’s good to move things around and experiment.”
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Feast on Art, chaired by Jane Heber and Pat Steinmann, begins tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Orange County Museum of Art, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach. The dinner fund-raiser is $75 per person, with tickets available at the door. The art will remain on display until Oct. 11. Information: (714) 759-1122.