Growing into Furniture

Chris Boyle

As a child my clothes were bought too big for me. A sense of economy bought me a dubious luxury of space. I would grow into them apparently. Get more wear out of them. There was something inevitable about the fact that they would eventually fit me. However I did not want to be shaped by their casual looseness, defined by their gangly proportions. If it wasn�t right for Geisha girls to have their young feet bound neither was it right for Irish boys to have long sleeves. I knew that this primitive experiment was unlikely to make me too tall for basketball. Torso�s and ribcages were unlikely to consent; but I feared limbs might be open to persuasion. After all I had seen the hands of overly ambitious piano players and goalkeepers and they were definitely bigger than my own... And anyway if I was so malleable why couldn�t my feet be force-grown in a useful vessel, like spoon-shaped shoes so that I could cradle a football like the men on the television.

Of course the clothes had to be of sufficient quality that they would last long enough for me to grow into them. Built to last. They also had to be chosen ahead of their time, such that they might fit me by the time they came into fashion. It was a precarious skill to learn. Not unlike trying to time a trip to the barber shop so that your hair would have enough time to grow out of a chop and back to the way you liked it.

And so the rules were established. Durable, robust and belonging some time in the future� Hopefully not that far into the future, because clothes were bought to wear, not to keep for later proof of your foresight. The idea of foresight didn�t carry much weight on the playing fields.

Thus the pattern emerged. Things that could be made to measure, to hug the contours of a body, did not take their measurements from me as I was but from how I would be. I was no longer the yardstick. More like a mannequin with margins.

In the margins dimensions do not conform to a handbook. It is a place beyond learning. Instinct and rules of thumb take over. Equations don�t balance but things work out. Things get slightly ugly yet strangely beautiful. New methods are born.

Yet perversely I find that it is in this strangeness of proportion that I find a more rigorous beauty. I think of Yeat�s watercolour "Not pretty but useful" and of the cartoon-ish length of the boxer�s arms which must have brought opponents into reach whilst also keeping them at a safe distance. Maybe he carried horseshoes in his gloves to stretch his arms and protect his face. Or maybe this is simply the body of a man grown accustomed to surviving amidst all the swinging and connecting in the brutally confined space of the ring. Or were the other reasons for these elongated limbs? Were there unusually deep cupboards in his house? When people came around for dinner did they always have to ask for the salt to be passed from its position just out of reach across the large table?

If the body is a tool for measuring what happens when that body encompasses abnormally beautiful limits? Do we enter the out of kilter land of Gulliver, kindergartens and bunk beds? Is this where Cathedrals come from? Might the golden section be losing its sheen? Is perfect posture all that comfortable? What do we do after we�ve put every last thing in its place? Don�t they send people to jail and lock them up with modular furniture? Isn�t that part of the punishment? Is it true that they shorten all the beds so that your feet stick out in the cold to quicken your desire to integrate yourself more hastily back into society? Isn�t a bed that accommodates your length into its width the height of luxury?

When we design to the limits of the body do we limit the horizon of new experience? Aren�t the wonders of the world measured by the degree by which they are removed from mans ability to make them? Do we not have to conjure up new methods? When we swing our arms and kick out our legs and scribe the circles in the air that Leonardo drew are we not trying to attract attention for someone to rescue us from our private bubbles? Are we not waving but drowning?

I remember the taunt that my small Italian car would have plenty of room to get my leg over in if I took out the front seats and drove from the back. Ignoring the jibe, I marvelled at the imagery of racing around driving from the bench that was the back seat. Stretching for the pedals and reaching for the steering and gearshift. My head hunched as the roofline gently sloped toward the rear window that would be my headrest. All I would see in the rear view mirror would be my own face laughing at the absurdity of designing things to fit. Picturing a body that would grow into the newly available space to spite my friend�s idea of legroom. The double-jointed-ness required to contort my way out of the only two doors, [positioned awkwardly forward in memory of the original front seats], would attribute to my car the only real characteristic of a true sports car it could ever aspire to, restricted access.

Haunted by a loving childhood, I long for other more complex things to grow into, like houses and furniture, things that will shape me.

I�m looking forward to being free from this preoccupation. Resting in peace. In a box. Made to measure. [A generous publicans measure]. With room to stretch. Or turn a few times. Or just grow.

Chris Boyle is an architect and furniture designer. Drawings by Richard A. Lawton, artist and sculptor.