Katherine Morley, left, and Erin McCutcheon, curators of CapacityKevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail
You were born in Kelowna, studied jewellery design in B.C. and then moved to Halifax. How did you end up in Toronto?
Erin McCutcheon: I took some technical jewellery design courses in Vancouver then I went to NSCAD [Nova Scotia College of Art and Design]to take metalsmithing. I graduated and started working in the art department for the film industry - did props, scenic painting, things like that. At that point, I decided I wanted to move from more of an art background to something that could be viewed potentially as a career and so I decided to go into industrial design and I moved to Toronto to attend OCAD, where I met Katherine.
So you moved from the west to the east to drop the whole starving-artist thing. Is Toronto the only Canadian city to be in if you want to be an artist as well as "industrial?"
E.M.: Definitely. The cost of living is, of course, greater, but the career gains are much more valuable.
Katherine, you started as a rock musician around town before you became an industrial designer; that's not exactly a conventional path. How did you get into it?
Katherine Morley: I was supplementing my income by being a nanny and so I pretty much spent my days drawing with the kids. I felt reinvigorated; I forgot how much I loved drawing. I ended up taking a drawing class at OCAD where I had an amazing teacher, Diane Pugen. She bluntly asked me what the hell I was doing with my life and why I wasn't in school full time. I didn't really have an answer to that question so I signed up for OCAD full time.
Your bio states that your work is interested in "the relationship built between object and owner." How do you build in this content before an "owner" actually comes into the equation?
E.M.: I produce my work with my hands and expect that the person who ends up with whatever comes out of them will have purchased it because they are aware of the authentic quality. I tend to put in my maker's mark, like leaving seams on ceramics, as a reminder. A glass that you buy at Walmart may be absolutely perfect, but it's cold and incapable of speaking to its owner. Sure, there's function, but no purpose.
You are both industrial designers, as opposed to artists; does this not mean that eventually you have a responsibility to feed the "industry" on a larger scale? Your own hands can't be responsible for mass numbers, so what do you do?
E.M.: I like the idea of me doing everything, but it is implausible. I wouldn't ship my stuff out to any kind of factory but I would work with an intern or two to make a collection slightly larger - by this I mean, like, 150 as opposed to 50 - as long as it keeps to the handmade quality of things.
K.M.: I'm a little different than Erin in that I tend to get bored, or run out of time, and move on after I finish a first batch. If the design works on a larger level, I would send it off to others to build, but only in a local capacity. I've had the opportunity to send my stuff out to China and it is tempting because it's so cheap, but I really believe that things should be made here in Canada.
Apparently you both know your own capacities - which also happens to relate to your Design Week show, Capacity. How did this come about?
E.M.: About a year and a half ago it dawned on me that women designers weren't getting the same kind of exposure that men did in Toronto. I didn't have any empirical evidence, though. So, Katherine and I went on a crusade - a kind of survey in and out of the shops and galleries along Queen Street. None of them carried women designers and barely any of them could name any - it was rather sad.
K.M.: So we decided we had to have a show, it was necessary, strictly for the purpose of providing opportunity.
But Toronto is a cachet-driven city. Do you fear your show will be sloughed off as an attempt to give mediocre female artists, who otherwise would not be cast into the limelight, exposure strictly on the basis of being women?
K.M.: No. Our show is not about politics and the work is really good and will speak for itself. The only way to get cachet is to put the names out there and that's what we are doing.
Capacity runs at the same time as the Interior Design Show; is this "big elephant" your foe or your friend?
E.M.: We would be better "friends" with IDS if it didn't have great things happening - like its relationship with Studio North - while at the same time pawning vacuums and tubs, just like we would be bigger fans of The One of a Kind Show if it didn't sell jam. But IDS draws in huge numbers and makes Toronto a design destination, so we do appreciate that aspect.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Special to The Globe and Mail
THE BIO
Erin McCutcheon
Industrial Designer
Age: 35
Katherine Morley
Industrial Designer
Age: 37
Erin McCutcheon and Katherine Morley are curators of the 10-woman show, Capacity, the latest addition to what has, in recent years, become Toronto's thriving Design Week. Although the two women have only been part of the industrial design scene for just over three years, it didn't take long for them to discover it needed to change. Starting Jan. 26 and running until Feb. 6 at Bookhou (798 Dundas St. W.), Capacity aims to put Toronto's female industrial designers on the map.