Friday Five with Mavis Wiggins

This week’s Friday Five features interior designer Mavis Wiggins, the Studio Creative Director and a recently appointed Managing Executive of TPG Architecture, a New York City-based practice we’ve featured before. Over her 30+ years in the field, eight of which with TPG, she has amassed an eclectic portfolio of workplace designs with a specialty in creating impactful financial services spaces. Her highly sought-after expertise rewards clients with everything they asked for and everything they didn’t know they wanted or needed, some of which include HBO, Assured Guaranty, NEX Group, BDT Capital Partners, Swiss Re, and many more. Read below to see her thoughtfully curated mix that displays her love and appreciation for art and design.

Soundsuits by Nick Cave, 2012

1. Nick Cave
I was first introduced to this artist during a performance in Grand Central Station. In reading about the upcoming show, it seemed an unlikely venue for such a futuristic sounding exhibit. It proved to be the perfect arena for the larger-than-life dancing figures darning sound suits that were both ancient and somewhere from a time yet to come.

Quilt by Lucy Mingo from 1979 \\\ Photo by Bill Volckening

2. Quilts of Gee’s Bend
Dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers was a small group of African-American women in Alabama who created hundreds of patchwork masterpieces. I was first introduced to their original and powerful craft by the exhibit assembled by the Whitney Museum of American Art. I was struck by the amazing sophistication of graphic interpretation and composition, and found the exhibit to be very unique and powerful. I was compelled by the brilliance of their abstract art that was realized from poverty, and has been celebrated by generations.

Russel Wright, “American Modern” Dinnerware, 1937, courtesy of MoMA

3. Russel Wright
I love Russel Wright’s mantra that “Good design is for everyone,” depicting his commitment to bringing design to the masses. I admire the superb simplicity of his work, including his Residential collection which I find to be both functional and beautiful.

Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum

4. Art Smith Jewelry
As a lover of jewelry, I appreciate the beautiful composition of materials and form of Art Smith. Inspired by surrealism, biomorphicism, and primitivism, his jewelry is dynamic in its size and form, in that it’s known for being big and bold. In my opinion, his work strikes the balance of elegant art with craft.

Photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

5. Kara Walker’s “A Subtlety”
One of the most powerful exhibits I’ve ever experienced was the installation Kara Walker created for Creative Time in 2014. Made of bleached-sugar, the massive sculpture is larger than life. Crafted in the former Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the 35-foot tall sphinx pays homage to slavery, which Walker titled: “A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant.”

from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/friday-five-with-mavis-wiggins/