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"René Magritte must have had mornings like that. Think of the painting he made in 1935. The painting is called "La Clef des songes" (The Interpretation of Dreams). It is a painting of a board with four panels. The board is like an old school primer, used to teach children the names of things. There is a horse, a clock, a pitcher, and a valise. Under the objects are words. The horse is labeled "the door." The clock is labeled "the wind." The pitcher is labeled "the bird." And the valise is labeled "the valise." Why are three objects mislabeled, while one object is correctly labeled? Maybe it is like our confused morning at the market. We felt odd not because the fruits were labeled incorrectly, but because the relationship of signs suddenly struck us as utterly arbitrary even when everything had been labeled correctly. Likewise, when we see the three incorrectly labeled objects in "La Clef des songes," we begin to distrust even the correct labeling of the valise. What does the word "valise" have to do with the picture of the valise, and what does the picture really have to do with the actual thing? When we represent reality in words or pictures, do we come closer to that reality, or push it further away?"

For those of you who are new to furniture painting. Here's a quick overview of the basic steps of furniture painting. Of course we can't cover everything here - but here's a start to finish flow chart!

I would say that for this piece I didn't do a lot of image research. I did a little bit, and that's what led to the paintings on the walls [of the set]. Because I was looking at period Russian rooms from the time, but they actually didn't influence the bones of the design from the beginning. I would say it was actually weirdly very intuitive.