Stephen Harris: Designer/Craftsman

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Begin with the furniture. Flipping through the striking photographs of
Stephen Harris’s superbly designed and beautifully made modern pieces,
one is reminded that furniture, like pottery, can reach the highest
levels of art. That specious distinction between art and craft, long
favored by Western critics, goes down before some of these elegant
works: an imbuya jewelry box; a walnut and ebony dictionary stand; a
benge settee; a fluted imbuya stool; the incredible slatted-back chair
shown on the back cover. One owner described the furniture as timeless,
not in the sense of style but because “it keeps speaking.”

Toronto-born Stephen Harris (1939-91) was a master designer and maker
of modern wood furniture. Self-taught and independently minded, he
accepted commissions from private clients from 1969 till his accidental
death 22 years later. Hart Massey (b. 1918) is a writer and sculptor in
metal. He met Harris in the early 1970s, and the two became friends.
This affectionate memoir draws on the reminiscences of friends and
clients, who testify to the integrated wholeness of Harris’s life and
work, and to his serenity, integrity, toughness, and vulnerability.

Most of the elegant furniture Harris designed and made has never been
exhibited and has thus been seen by very few people. This beautiful and
unusual book, with its feast of photos, provides a permanent record of
the life and work of a craftsman-artist, and reminds the reader that
every artist is a maker.