Rick Wrigley Has Entered Phase Three
In which the furniture maker and builder turns to sculpture
Provincetown Independent
BY JOHN GREINER-FERRIS AUG 11, 2021
Source: Provincetown Independent
It has been said that if you let an artist work long enough, he’ll eventually start working abstractly. If true, this certainly applies to Rick Wrigley, who says his career over the past 40 years can be broken into three phases: furniture maker, house builder, and now sculptor.
Phase one: Wrigley grew up in Arlington, Va. — a place he calls “affluent America” — but left as soon as he graduated from high school. While his peers went to college, he traveled around the United States for six months in a “hippie van.” He apprenticed for a few years with a classically trained cabinetmaker before enrolling in the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology, graduating with a B.F.A. in furniture design.
AMP GALLERY: Works by Rick Wrigley, alongside “Forrest Williams: A Retrospective” On view through September 15, 2021
Rick Wrigley in his summer studio. Located in the Provincetown woods, and nicknamed the “Mushroom House,” it was built by Donald Jasinski in the 1950s. (Photo John Greiner-Ferris)
Wrigley opened a studio in New Rochelle, N.Y. During that time, he became an important member of the studio furniture movement. He was invited to exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. (where he has a piece in the permanent collection); the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; the Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan, Conn.; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Phase two: After moving to Provincetown in 1999, Wrigley started focusing on architecture. He sees the progression as natural. “If you’re designing furniture, it’s not that big a step to designing a house,” he says. “It’s the same kind of manual skills: drawing, woodworking, and other mechanical abilities. You’re just visualizing something you’re inside of, instead of looking down at it.”
Sculpture No. 2, by Wrigley, is made from steam-bent white oak and lead. (Photo courtesy AMP Gallery)
