apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Comber's very much a man of his place, "an aesthetic interpretor of the Pacific Northwest" with its distinctive, wild shapes and materials. We agree that installing a Brent Comber piece like the Alder Cubes (above), made to evoke the clean vertical density of a forest, would most definitely make a statement about your love for the woodsy Northwest, but this goes way beyond log cabin clichs. Comber's style is modern and extremely sophisticated. Comber's sculpture, environments, and even some of his functional pieces share a meditative mood that stems from his curiosity-driven process ("What would happen if I tried juxtaposing different grains randomly?") In the hands of a less accomplished artist this would run the risk of producing a lot of failed experiments, but the results here are consistently crowd-pleasing, easy to embrace from a variety of design schools and perspectives. In addition to re-assembled tables (like Alder) and the spooky lighting blogged here, Comber's studio produces sculpted objects and full-on design environments like Dos Caminos. This cohort of latter-day Nakashimas works exclusively with sustainable materials like naturally-fallen cedar, maple, and Douglas Fir, and hand-crafts every piece.