Erik Speer

ERIK SPEER

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Todd Merrill & Associates, Inc.

80 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10013

www.toddmerrillstudio.com

Printed in the United States of America

Catalog Design: Dallas Dunn

Photography: Simon Leung Self

ERIK SPEER

By Dallas Dunn

For the past eight years nomadic artist Erik Speer has been creating experimental fiber art collages that employ an array of techniques – macrame, crotchet, knitting, felting, weaving, etc. Thoughtfully detailed and expressive, his sculptural “tapestries” are naturally evocative and deeply rooted in his personal narrative. While his road to full time creator was circuitous, it was not without purpose or consequence. Each turn in his path would become an integral component to his artistic practice and his creative outlook.

Born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico, at 15 Speer’s family moved to South Carolina, where a biology teacher would spark what would become a life long fascination with the ocean. She hosted weekend field trips, taking students on shrimp boats and teaching them about river dredging. Shortly after, he did his first open water dive and got his scuba diving license. “It opened up this whole new world that I had never experienced or even thought about,” he says. Though he entered college intending to go into the field of medicine, eventually Speer came to recognize that an office life would not fulfill him. For two years after leaving school he travelled

the world as a diving instructor, teaching in countries like Honduras, Croatia, and Malaysia, before moving back to South Carolina and graduating from College of Charleston with a degree in marine biology.

Soon after a restlessness set in that would again alter his trajectory. In marine biology, he explains, “You were either gonna be working on a fish boat in Alaska in the middle of nowhere holding fish counts, or you were gonna be stuck in a laboratory counting plankton samples. And I was like, I can’t do this. That’s not the life I want.” Speer left Charleston and moved to New York City where he attended Parsons for fashion design. Unfulfilled by the hands-off aspect of most fashion design work, he started experimenting with macrame and fiber arts. ‘

Naturally, much of Speer’s inspiration for his work comes from the ocean, with his art as the medium to share his experiences in the water. “I guess that’s kind of how I put together my pieces…trying to recreate that aspect of it and taking fibers and small materials and building it onto each other to make this larger scale piece that feels

like it’s complete. It’s like its own organism and its living on its own.” When you look at his work, you see the influence of his diving days: massive wall hangings that resemble coral reefs, knitted and crocheted from wool, interspersed with shapes reminiscent of barnacles and sea urchins made from various fibers and textiles. “Most all of my materials are of natural origin, with wools, silks and linen being my favorites. I strive to use recycled fibers and yarns along with dead overstock and waste material. My main methods of construction include knotting, knitting, crocheting, braiding, and weaving, but I constantly try to push the boundary of what is possible with my media.”

It’s not hard to imagine the state of meditative calm Speer must experience while creating the multitude of components that make up his remarkable tapestries. Perhaps that calm mirrors those underwater spaces that have always captivated him.

#24, USA, 2021

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 97h x 48w x 6d inches

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 40h x 76w x 5d inches

#36, USA, 2023

#31, USA, 2022

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 46h x 40w x 6d inches

#14, USA, 2020

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 42h x 20w x 5d inches

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 54h x 54w x 5d inches

#37, USA, 2023

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 33h x 50w x 6d inches

#15, USA, 2022

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 60h x 24w x 6d inches

#17, USA, 2020

#25, USA, 2021

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 96h x 38w x 6d inches

#11, USA, 2019

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather

62h x 34.25w x 6d inches

#30, USA, 2022

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 62h x 34.25w x 6d inches

#16, USA, 2020

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 62h x 20w x 6d inches

Wool, cotton, silk, linen, rayon, polyester, leather 72h x 66w x 6d inches

#37, USA, 2023

Todd Merrill Studio

Todd Merrill Studio represents an international group of established and emerging artists, each with a singular artistic vision and unprecedented point of view. In creating unique works of collectible design, each artist takes a hands-on approach that intersects contemporary design, fine art, traditional craft techniques, and pioneering innovation.

Individually, through meticulous craftsmanship and rigorous studio experimentation, each has developed leading-edge, proprietary methods that break previously set inherent limitations of conventional materials like wood, metal, plaster, concrete, ceramics, glass, and resin. Their intimate studio approach fosters an atmosphere of creativity where the work rendered significantly bears the hand of the artist.

Collectively the artists are helping to create a new visual vocabulary that advances long-held, established artistic boundaries. Their dynamic, one-of-a-kind, and frequently groundbreaking works contribute to today’s increasingly relevant grey space between art and design.

With the gallery’s support, the artists’ works have entered the collections of major private and public patrons and prestigious museums including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Museum of Art and Design in New York; the High Museum in Atlanta; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Carnegie Museum of Art in Philadelphia, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

In 2000, Todd Merrill opened Todd Merrill Antiques which quickly became renowned for its glamorous and eclectic mix of twentiethcentury furniture and lighting. The pioneering gallery was one of the of the first to promote modernist and postmodernist American studio artisans including Paul Evans, Phillip Lloyd Powell, George Nakashima, Karl Springer, James Mont, Tommi Parzinger, among others.

In 2008, Rizzoli published Merrill’s “Modern Americana: Studio Furniture from High Craft to High Glam”, the first ever authoritative examination of the great studio furniture makers and designers who, from 1940 thru the 1990s defined American high style. To celebrate the tenth anniversary, in 2018 Rizzoli published an expanded edition, adding 60 pages to his original book. This survey of the period continues with two massive additional chapters focused on Women Makers and Showrooms.

After the publication of Modern Americana in 2008, Merrill began to shift the focus of the gallery and started the Studio Contemporary program which has today become his primary focus. Also in 2008 the gallery introduced Custom Originals, a line of custom produced upholstered furniture designed by Merrill himself. Merrill’s signature creations reflect his vast experience with twentieth-century design and knowledge of contemporary tastes.