Designing from Life Lessons Learned
By Andre Sandifer
When I was in high school, my mom got laid off from GM for two years and worked for a cleaning service, cleaning the offices of a book company. Needing a job, I worked for the same service, cleaning a furniture company’s offices. I’d finish work early and go to look at their various manufacturing processes. One of the guys in the finishing department asked how old I was and said, “I always see you looking at the work.” That’s when I started thinking about furniture.
My father passed when I was nine. In a way, my older brother became my dad. Growing up, my grandfather — my mom’s dad — had a used car business and an auto-body shop. During the summers, my brother and I would just go there and help. It was like daycare and work at the same time. I would do a lot of sweeping and organizing papers. A lot of playing with random auto-body parts.
After my brother graduated from Ferris State in marketing, he started his own used car business in Grand Rapids. My grandfather helped him out with that. My grandfather sold cars he could fix up. My brother would buy cars he could sell right away. He did that for a number of years, and then partnered with friends and went into the night-club business for five years. Then he started a small construction company. I was in graduate school for architecture when he said “I’m gonna take this construction test. I’m gonna study and I’m gonna pass it.” He studied for a couple months and passed it the first time. He started his own construction business right around the time I graduated from the University of Michigan in architecture.
The day my brother passed, I was working with him. I’d just graduated and was helping him that summer, doing construction. We were putting up a garage door and I was telling him what I wanted to do, I wanted to start my own design practice. He said “You should just do it,” and he explained, step by step, what he did to start his business. That night, he passed.
We still don’t know how. He was home with his wife and something mysterious happened. After he had passed, I was in the hospital with my grandfather, who was a pastor. He looked at me and said, “you should be inspired.” And I looked at him like, “What do you mean ‘be inspired’? My brother just passed.” But I knew what he meant. It had to do with the idea of making.
He meant for me to be inspired by my brother’s life and what he had done. Nothing is created or destroyed. It just transforms. I thought about this when I opened a furniture studio One Line in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Each piece I made had my brother’s initials on it. One Line — one continuous line, changing and creating form. Nothing is ever lost, it just changes and is re-formed. Each piece had that same language. A modern feel, thinking about different ways to store objects but maintain a sense of balance and simplicity. That’s where my brother really played a role. That was how I started to design.
I have learned that designing and prototyping is very similar to other things in life. I learn from mistakes that inform how to approach the next chapter. As I move through life and understand myself from different perspectives, I begin to understand and see my faults. Many times, my faults or bad habits are not true expressions of how I am, but are internal survival mechanisms that have been cultivated and developed over time.
I started designing and making furniture as a healing process.The last piece I made for a client I designed based on the language of family. She had asked me to design a round table for their home. She’s married with four kids so I calculated: between each child is nine months, so each section has nine dowels that begin to close the circle. The kids provided the structure. The brass ring securing the legs became the marriage that bonded the structure together. The top became the parents, the providers. As a parent, whatever you’re going through, you pass down to your kids. The weight of the parents registers on the kids. Nothing is created or destroyed.
When I observe the natural environment — a tree, for an example — I see the correlation between this idea and the definition of symbiotic partnerships: The tree has leaves for shade. During the fall, leaves can be gathered to play. When left undisturbed, they create another ecosystem. The empty branches become a resting spot for birds and squirrels.
My partner Abir and I ran our custom furniture design business for two years after we separated. I had one kid with Abir and two kids previously. Every piece we designed had a storage component. Abir is seriously OCD when it comes to organization. I call her closet “the department store.” Our design was structural and organized, but playful. Our personalities overlapped. Our chemistry challenged the way things work, creating designs that appeared symmetrical but weren’t. Some things shift just slightly.
We’d make pieces and clients would say, “I put my cup on the piece and now I have a water ring.” And we’d say “Apply more wax to the surface and you’ll be fine, or put a tablecloth on it, or let the ring be part of your story.” Abir and I would always say “either you’re a coaster client or you’re not.”
The art piece we made for Art Prize in 2014 was a contemporary take on the Last Supper that allowed people to carve their story into a 30’ long table made out of walnut. When we brought it to the museum in Grand Rapids, we released the piece from our responsibility and allowed people to carve into it. The idea was about forgiveness and trust. Abir was raised in a Catholic School. Her family religion was Islam but she knew more about the Catholic church. A lot of the pieces we did together have a strong tie to both our marriage and our individual lives.
The day before we left for Grand Rapids, I’d finished the table and had a day and a half to design and make 13 stools. I went to the studio with an idea and would send Abir a picture of a mock-up, then Abir would sketch. I would comment and the process would keep going until we had a final piece. The shape of the stools came out of this continuous conversation. In another part of the building where our studio was located, they were filming the Batman movie. I finished the stools at 4 o’clock in the morning and walked out. There was the Batmobile.
For a while after our separation, I couldn’t make furniture anymore because it was a reminder of the business we had together. So I worked for other people. I was used to restarting. I had opened and shut down design businesses about three or four times in the last fifteen years and that was no big deal, but this time it was different. I was doing it by myself just how I started in 2002.
Abir and I were lucky enough throughout our practice to get a lot of write-ups and press, so many people knew who we were. When you’re in an article, people think you’re doing a lot better than you are because they associate the article with monetary gain. I would interview for jobs and people would say, “Oh, yeah, yeah, you were in that article.” And I’d have to say, “Well, right now I’m looking for a job.” It was a humbling experience. When I applied for work doing design built furniture, I was often challenged about what I know. “Oh yeah, you’re a finalist for a craft award. Are you a true craftsman? Do you follow the traditional way of making?” I’m not a traditional craftsman. My way of making is more about the process than the tools. As a Black maker, I was also not sure if the challenges were racially motivated. There aren’t many of us.
I needed a job, so I signed up with Manpower and worked for Ford filling glove orders. My mom had worked for GM for 25 years sewing seat covers. When you’re a kid, you don’t understand what your parents do to put food on the table. My mom worked jobs that weren’t necessarily appealing, so I decided to take the Ford job. Ford spends a million and a half dollars in gloves for the workers, just at one plant. The most expensive gloves are $6 and one worker can go through two pairs a day. 1500 workers in a plant. Ford was trying to introduce a program where, instead of getting new gloves, workers would get rewashed gloves. I would get a sheet that says “This department needs ten of these gloves, ten of these gloves, ten of these gloves.” You have a choice of giving them new gloves or rewashed gloves. I’d give half and half. The workers were not having it. They’d tell me “I don’t want these used gloves.” The plant was the final assembly before the truck was finished and they didn’t want to scratch the car before it went out. But maybe more than that, the idea of used gloves said to them: “We’re not valued. The company didn’t invest in me.”
Ford’s main objective was to save money, but I think if they came from a different perspective, one that considered the quality of life for their employees, it would have been perceived as a caring gesture as opposed to monetary gain. If you think about it, typically when you buy new clothes you should probably wash them before you wear it, to remove any chemical or residue from the manufacturing process. I was not able to recommend this solution.
Moving on with the next chapter of my life, I find value in the idea of adapting to my environment or circumstances so I can better understand where I am currently and where I would like to be in the future. Planting seeds for future growth is the biggest take-away for me when I’m dealing with an adverse situation, allowing myself to process the current situation so I can plan for future opportunities.
Andre Sandifer is a designer and a self-taught craftsman. He was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan and professionally trained in Architecture. He holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan (2001) and a Bachelor in Facilities Management from Ferris State University (1996). Andre specializes in hand-fabrication, with an expertise in hardwoods.
