Headless man and headless tea towel
SUPERSWEET uncovered Third Drawer Down when accidentally falling into an L.A shop and buying a number of 'functional art' products in stock - namely some kick-ass wittily stitched teatowels. Two months later, our Chief Ed stocks up the SS shop to the hilt and pulls the drawer wide open on this company, discovering a whole new wave of kooky, inspiring, beautiful, satirical and even educational hybrid art products steered by Abi Compton and her crew of main collaborators David Shrigley, Kat Macleod and David Bromley...
SS: Personally, do you think art should be functional than just to be admired?
Abi: No, I think art should be whatever art is. Some art, like Gerhard Richter's photorealism paintings have no function in all other than being awesome in size, context and technique. Whereas, Marcel Duchamp and 'Fountain', where he exhibited a men's urinal with an alias 'R.Mutt 1917' is a functional object turned on its side and exhibited as a functional work of art that questions the very context of the art, as he believes that art is only art by the simple fact the artist has decided it to be art.
Hybrid art is a huge trend over the last couple of years. You can find it in your local shoe store where you can buy a pair of limited edition artist converse or Nike sneakers. Or you can blow your nose, or dry your dishes with functional art. Or you can get your daily salt and pepper using your 'Heroine and Cocaine' shakers by David Shrigley that are also functional art.
SS: Would you consider yourself a domestic queen? What would be your specialty?
Abi: I actually laugh at myself and the whole tea towel project as I'm raised not to dry the dishes with towels - I only have a couple in the kitchen that I use for covering things or handling hot objects. Funny hey? I am domestic with other stuff; I love to have beautiful things around me and my home is my earth.
TDD started as a tea towel project which has now expanded into a product development agency working with galleries around the world making their bespoke artist products. The other arm to the project is a museum of art souvenirs store which opened a month ago in Melbourne, Australia. So all in all, TDD is more than the domestic.
SS: Can being 'arty' sometimes seem pretentious? Have you ever fallen into that thin-line trap? How can one avoid it?
Abi: I think a lot of people and disciplines are pretentious, it's about ego really. Some people are truly "amazing" and others talk themselves into amazing. I think the main point in life is to have integrity with whatever you do.
SS: Explain the idea behind your packaging for products please.
Abi: Third Drawer Down has been the same for over 5 years now. The packaging was developed to be exported everywhere, hence the generic sizing to fit postal systems. The graphics is about tradition as I never developed TDD to be a trend concept. I think this is a really important question people should ask themselves when they start a new product - do they want to be a trend or apart of tradition. Your answer will lead the way in how you express your products value system.
The artists we collaborate with make the front envelope design. We are not precious about what they do, just as long as we have our logo on there. Ohhh, and the TDD packaging is 100% recycled paper as we believe it is an important part of producing objects, we also use vegetable dyes for the screenprinting requirements.
SS: How do you decide which artwork makes the TDD tea towels? Does the criteria mostly depend on your personal taste?
Abi: The artist decides most of the time. We have an open door when it comes to working with our artists. A collaboration only works when the parties involved are friendly and have integrity to the project.
TDD is a very self indulgent project. Artists are chosen by a whim and/or art crushes. This is the only method that worked for me as I can make choices not on whether they are good artists, hot artists, or hobby artists - it is about an image, a line work that I have experience with and I want to share it with 1000 (usual edition number) other people around the world.
SS: What's been the best-selling ever in TDD and why do you think so?
Abi: The 3 best selling tea towels have been all made with artists whose first name is David, weird hey! David Wlazlo, he wrote out the entire Australian Constitution by hand (56+ pages) with a fountain pen at 1:1 scale and aptly names it 'Static White Noise' - as the text was so small it looked like the fuzz on an untuned TV. David Shrigley - everything he touches turns to gold. And David Bromley, in Australia he has an amazing presence, people were ordering 10 at a time and selling them on ebay for $400+ in auctions by cropping out the Third Drawer Down logo and advertising they were edition prints on linen... not tea towels - naughty people!!!
SS: Can you give us tips to what product you think might be big in 2009 and why?
Abi: Sustainable everything and high quality products because people would much prefer one long lasting thing than the disposable option. Why? 'Cos next year it's going to be a rocky economic world out there!