The Store of Happiness

Designer Sebastian Cox and artist Laura Ellen Bacon fuse their ideas and skills to create an installation for the Clerkenwell Design Week out of American hardwood.

Laura Ellen Bacon e Sebastian Cox, The Invisible Store of Happiness
The Invisible Store of Happiness is a three-metre high wooden sculpture showcased in the archway in front of the historic Museum of the Order of St John in London’s Clerkenwell neighbourhood.
Sponsored by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), it is made out of American maple and cherry and consists of a mighty steam bent frame that gives way to thinner, weave-able strips manipulated to twist and flow into a whirlpool of texture and shape.
Laura Ellen Bacon e Sebastian Cox, The Invisible Store of Happiness. Vista dell'allestimento al Museo dell’Ordine di San Giovanni, Londra
Laura Ellen Bacon and Sebastian Cox, The Invisible Store of Happiness. View of the installation at the Museum of the Order of St John, London

“The starting point is the material. Laura works in a material that allows her to make form but the material for Laura is secondary. She is a sculptor first and foremost. I think materials first, structure later,” says Cox. “So there was a huge discussion about the challenge between design and sculpture.”

“There is a blur here between sculpture and furniture. My work typically carries of a notion of growth and momentum and I always like to question how and why a form comes into being. When creating a form brings so much joy in the making, then the form will always carry this joy within it,” says Laura Ellen Bacon. “For me, forms are always created in respect of what is possible with my bare hands. Alongside Sebastian, we’ve tried to use this material in as pure a way as possible, letting the form convey both the properties of the wood and what is possible with our bare hands.”

Laura Ellen Bacon e Sebastian Cox, The Invisible Store of Happiness. Vista dell'allestimento al Museo dell’Ordine di San Giovanni, Londra
Laura Ellen Bacon and Sebastian Cox, The Invisible Store of Happiness. View of the installation at the Museum of the Order of St John, London

The maple and cherry have been crafted into an elliptical-shape frame that showcases fine craftsmanship and impeccable cabinetry on a grand scale with huge arcs of steam bent wood, hand jointed together in mostly glue-less draw-bore mortice and tenon joints.

Through complex machinery the components of this solid frame are effectively shredded into strips and made supple and weave-able from time spent soaking in the River Thames besideCox’s Woolwich workshop. These strips are boldly manipulated by hand, flowing and twisting into the space to create a whirlpool of texture and shape, all held within its mighty external frame.

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