ARTIST INTERVIEW WITH JAY POTTS

This week we catch up with Artist, Designer and lover of chairs, Jay Potts. Jay grew up in Toronto and is now living in London, currently completing a Masters in Architecture. We recently collaborated with Jay on the King Candle Holder, a 1kg slab of solid steel, transformed into a functional and industrial candle holder. We chat about his creative beginnings, design ethos, the use of “tools” and his artists inspirations.

"The King" is part of an ongoing series of heavy-duty art called “TOOL OR WEAPON”, a series about the productive/destructive nature of design. "The King" is an in-store exclusive, only available for purchase at our Shoreditch store on Redchurch street.  

You can check out Jays website here, and make sure you give him a follow on Instagram.

Hey Jay, been great to collaborate with you. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

Alright, so my name is Jay Potts. I make things and I fix things. I love junk. Garbage, trash, whatever. We used to dig for buried treasure but now we only find trash, and I think that’s where we’re at culturally. I try to make people look at garbage because it’s an ugly reflection of who we are and what we are doing in the name of capital and convenience. I think there’s a lot of beauty and potential in junk, and I want to keep it local, rather than shipping it off to some wasteland. As much as I design, I also like to write. I wrote a Refab Manifesto in 2021 and I’ve been operating on those principles for the past few years. Writing keeps me critical and that keeps my ideas and outputs relevant.

You seem to have a very “hands on” approach to your creativity, did that come from anywhere in particular?

When I was young, I wanted to be an inventor and an artist. My mom put me in a painting class when I was 6. My dad’s an engineer and I used to think he made robots (he didn’t). He taught me how to build things and to fix things. I remember one year he kept bringing home busted TVs he found on the side of the road. He would fix them up in the basement and every few months we’d have a bigger TV. It definitely taught me the value of salvage and being handy. We built a cabin together many years ago and now I’m on route to becoming an architect.

Can you talk us through the process behind making The King Candle Holder?

The King came about pretty naturally. We had just moved into a new flat and I wanted to treat the new digs like a design project. I always loved how architects like Wright and MackIntosh conceived of their building projects as “total designs.” This means they would design everything from the walls to the lamps and chairs. Anyway, the new flat is this warehouse conversion, so I wanted to create industrial home furnishings to match the vibe. The King was the first stab at it. My process always begins from the material. When you work with savaged material, the state that you find the material in is always the limiting factor for the end product. Architects always say it’s much more difficult to design something with an unlimited budget than something with constraints, and the same thing applies here. Anyway, I found some steel offcuts lying around and thought about ways to combine them. Truthfully, the King came together in only one or two hours. It was total synchronicity. Of course, I refined the prototype over a couple days, but the concept was there from the start: square base with an off-centred hole. Simple. Sturdy. No faff.

Anything in particular that drew you to working with metal?

At one point in my obsessive collecting career, I fell in love with cutlery. I love that you can use a knife to spread butter on toast but you can also strike it on flint to start a fire. You can use a spoon to eat cereal but also to plant a tree. These simple bits of metal are probably the first “tools” we ever use. They are basic but hugely dynamic. Anyway, I really got into knife-making and blacksmithing around 11 or 12. At that time, my dad and I got a bench grinder from a dude on Craigslist and I made my first blank. I had no idea there were different types of steel. The blade could never hold an edge and I realised I’d need a lot more equipment to make anything half-decent, so I shelved the passion. In Uni, I had access to an unreal metal shop, so I started going in every day to get better.

There’s something addictive about steel because it’s so unforgiving. You got to work it. It’s super slow but also extremely fast. You can spend all day filing, but at the same time you can weld two pieces together almost instantly. You can’t force steel; drill something too fast and it’ll heat up and harden. Go too slow and you’ll never get it done. Ultimately, I think you need a lot of patience. It’s a tough opponent and it demands a lot from you. I always find the toughest adversaries teach you a lot.

So we heard you like to collect chairs… whats that about?

I’ve always collected things. Mostly junk. It started with bottle caps when I was 6 or 7. It grew into vintage t-shirts in high school. I used to bring home dozens of white tees from the thrift store and used an eye dropper loaded with bleach to remove the stains. Naturally, this matured into chairs. The chair is the holy grail of design. Design a great chair, you’ll live forever. It is incredibly simple in function, but we’ve found thousands of ways to alter its form. I think because so many designers strive to create the next great chair, we often forget how many thousands of chairs already work. I personally think we’ve designed enough chairs and it’s time to start rethinking what we can do with what we already have. I started “collecting” chairs in my first year in Uni straight up because I needed one and didn’t want to pay for it. I pulled one from the bin and fixed it up. It totally radicalised me. I ended up furnishing our whole flat with street finds. I still have a bunch of chairs hanging around that are in desperate need of loving. The oldest one I have is from the 1920s. Someone curbed it in front of the building so I brought it inside and started tinkering. It took a few months of weekends to pull it together, but I’m super happy with the results. When I restore a chair, I like to add something to it. Because they’re free, it gives you license to experiment. That’s why I love to salvage; you can try and fail and not suffer financially.

Any artists that inspire you?

For the longest time, my artists were the surrealists. Dalí was always up there for me, but I think Duchamp has been my go-to for a few years. That transitioned into Sachs, but he’s a bit of a shady capitalist, so I’m not so sure anymore. I like to think my designs intersect with art because of the agency I give to chance and intuition. I often start making something with no clear picture, and like to let things fall into place. Something like Jean Arp’s torn paper paintings. One of the craziest experiences I had with a painting has to have been one of Yves Klein’s IKB pieces at the Pompidou. I remember getting real close to it and feeling like the blue surface was shimmering and slowly pulling me in, enveloping me entirely. It was literally just a canvas painted blue! It got me thinking about how simple gestures can have a huge impact, and I like to think that’s how I approach my pieces today.

Any plans for the future?

The more I design, the more I’m unsure about a clear path for me. I wanted to be an architect for probably the last 15 years, and I’m almost there, but I’m a bit disenfranchised with it. I guess that’s probably the same with any passion. It gives and it takes. Ideally, I want to be in a position that offers me creative freedom. I don’t mind if that’s at the scale of a building or a doorknob. Eventually, I’d like to own chickens and grow apples.

Any advice on being creative?

I would say one of the easiest things you can do is to just be aware. If you’re aware of your environment, of yourself, of how things affect you, you set yourself up to have ideas. Write down every idea you have, no matter how stupid. I fill up a notebook every month and I get a lot of essay writing done in the notes app. Always keep a pencil on you and be around people that inspire you. My partner Ilka is my favourite designer and our conversations are the basis for most of what I do and how I think. I think failure is crucial and I’ve got to thank Reza Nik for teaching me that you need to fail to grow creatively.

All time favourite film/album? 

My favourite film has got to be Fight Club. I appreciate how they they steal the liposuction fat and sell it back to the rich people in bars of soap. Weirdly, I like to think I have a similar approach when I design stuff made from junk. You take something people have thrown away, reshape it and give it new life as something fresh and desirable (hopefully less psycho-maniacally). Top album is a tough one. I think my top three are Word…Life, Madvillainy and Black Star (order TBD).

Cheers Jay!