Unique 'In God We Trust' Chair, 1964

The designs of Wendell Castle are nothing short of extraordinary. Their unusual shapes extend and grow into the ground resembling the undulating forms within a Lava lamp or the roots of a mangrove tree- organic and free. The impossible forms Wendell created were only possible due to his technique in carving stack laminated wood, an idea he conjured while recalling the process of making decoy ducks as a child. He could stack and glue layers of wooden planks and carve them into shapes that appear to defy gravity due to the strength added through the lamination process. Initially, it was an attractive technique because it allowed for cheaper and faster production than carving forms from a single block of wood. He constructed his earliest creations using gunstock scraps from a nearby manufacturer that would have likely gone to waste if he hadn't found a use for them. He began with a drawing, imagining fantastical shapes that could easily find a home in the pages of a Dr. Suess book. Then, with a chainsaw and a chisel, he turned these sensual, dreamlike forms into reality. Throughout the 60-plus years he spent designing fine art furniture, Wendell expanded his mediums to include fiberglass, plastic, metal, and concrete. However, he never lost his whimsical sense of style, and his dedication to craftsmanship and his unique identity never wavered, no matter how the market for his works ebbed and flowed.

Propelled by his love of works by icons such as Eero Aarnio, Luigi Colani, Verner Panton, and Olivier Mourgue, Wendell became a guiding figure in the American craft movement creating furniture that doubled as fine art. He was never concerned with creating work that was palatable to potential buyers. In fact, he strived to do the opposite, creating designs with his own rules and taking risks at every turn. His sculptural furniture borderlines on futurism while also connecting to the timelessness of organic forms, no doubt a nod to his formal training studying sculpture and industrial design at the University of Kansas. The In God We Trust Chair was designed in 1964, shortly after Wendell began teaching at the School for American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology. The chair, like many of his other creations, is based on the cantilever construction technique, which appears to defy gravity by supporting the central portion of the design at only one end. The chair was submitted to Rochester's Finger Lakes Exhibition, where it won first place, igniting his creative fire. The award marked the start of many lifetime accomplishments, and this particular model was kept in his personal collection for numerous years.

Wendell received numerous accolades throughout his career, including four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, was granted three honorary degrees, and spent numerous years as the Artist in Residence at Rochester Institute of Technology. He was honored with the Visionaries of the American Craft Movement Award from the American Craft Museum in 1994, the American Craft Council Gold Medal in 1997, the James Renwick Alliance of the National Museum of American Art's Master of the Medium Award in 1999, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. His fascinating gestural creations have been added to the permanent collections of nearly 50 international museums and institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.