Micha Von Döring starts with raw wood.  He does not have all the modern machinery that one might expect, but does all the work from scratch creating beauty from a piece of exotic wood.

TW:  How do you describe your work?
MVD:  I describe it as functional sculpture in wood.  It didn't start out that way.  I started out a furniture designer in Germany.  When I was young, I got a degree in furniture designing and furniture making as well.  In 1989, when I was 22, I came to Laguna Beach.  The way my furniture has come about in the last seven years has been an evolution of my own style.  I studied architecture and was hired to plan out high-end spaces and galleries.  I design the look and then I make it.  I pick up where the architects leave off.  My line of furniture essentially came from my own need for building something that facilitates the spirit.  The big pieces are to hold your most precious belongings.  There are meditation/prayer cabinets/altars.  The goal behind them is to put things in them that you love and care for from your heart.  I had that need and I think we all do - setting up candles and stuff.  I love art and am very much into sculpture, abstract painting and anything that is creative intellectually as well as artistically.  I had the idea of playing with raw wood and interpreting it a different way and that's how this all came about.  You can look at a chair as a sculpture.  For example, this is barely a chair.  It is more like the last level of function before it becomes purely sculpture.  I wanted to do an exercise where I could do just that.  My main focus is the timber selection.  I try and find timbers that have character.  Nowadays, I have 4 or 5 sources in this country, South America and in Africa.  So when a source has special pieces, they call the few of us that do what we do.  I try to make sure that the timber doesn't come from an area where they pillage the forest, but that it is conscientiously harvested and the money goes back to the locals, which is not always easy to do.  I feel like the tree is still celebrated in my type of work having made beautiful things out of the tree.  Mainly, my pieces go in clients' homes that already have a very strong architectural structure.  The look is usually modern or contemporary architecture that is eclectic.  My pieces play off a lot of glass, concrete, high walls, and tall ceilings.  This is a very brief profile of my typical client.  Some of them are collectors and some of them are regular people with a contemporary mindset.

TW:  Do you have any artists that you enjoy looking at?
MVD:  I am a huge fan of Sinome, Naguchi, and Branchusi.  I like a lot of the modern abstract painters that this country provides and I get a lot of inspiration out of nature.  I think when you know how to take things out of context your whole perception becomes rich.  You're no longer looking at what it is but rather all the other things that it represents.  A lot of my close friends are also my inspiration.  Having lived here for this long, I think what gets overlooked (even though Laguna Beach has a great reputation as a town that supports the arts but that is also a huge cliché) is there are some incredibly talented artists living here.  They are true artists in the true definition, whatever that means.  Having lived in the art world as long as I have, you get disillusioned.  Nevertheless, there are some great sculptures, painters and people that are doing it, are committed, and are doing it for the right reasons.  As a result, their art is very popular.

TW:  Do you ever do shows?
MVD:  Yes, in the last few years, I have been participating in the Festival of the Arts because it's local and I like to be a part of that.  I'll do that again this year.  I have a show coming up in June at a symposium in Atlanta with Joseph Campbell.  He was a huge powerful professor of Comparative Religions.  He brought together all the fables of the different religions and found commonalities in them.  I will be giving a lecture along with other speakers.  I just completed a show that was funded by the Smithsonian.  I curated my own environment and had other artists participate.  That was a lot of fun.  I have a show coming up in New York.  It is a show in conjunction with a lecture.  I still do a lot of commissions in addition to shows.

TW:  Is there a difference between art and craft?
MVD:  Something that is well-crafted is already art.  In my field, particularly, if something is well done that is like the highest level.  In my opinion, art and craft is one.  If you were not to execute my pieces without the master craftsmanship-like manner, they would not have that energy about them.  On a personal note, becoming a good craftsman is a requirement to becoming a good artist.  It is a journey.  You become better by just doing it.  Anything that is worthwhile doing takes focus and dedication.

You can see the art of Micha von Döring at:

Zeitgeist Furniture
2139 Laguna Canyon Rd.
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
(949) 376-6062
www.zeitgeistfurniture.com