Q&A with wooden chest expert Edward S. Cooke Jr.

This year's annual Riggins Lecture in Art presents "The Inside Story: Materiality and Agency in Wooden Chests" with Edward S. Cooke, Jr., professor of American Decorative Arts in the art history department at Yale University. 

The lecture features a chest of drawers made in New England in 1795 and a Japanese cabinet from 1600. Cooke will discuss what can be learned from the two objects, made in two very different societies and almost 200 years apart. 

Staff writer Marisa Dunn spoke with Cooke about his studies and the universality of furniture. 

The Daily Tar Heel: What drew you to start studying furniture?

Edward S. Cooke, Jr.: I got interested when I was an undergraduate here at Yale, and I had the opportunity to realize that objects can be historical documents. They can both provide proof as well as generate ideas for insights into a past culture or society. So, I was very glad to have a collection here on campus I could tap into. I was majoring in history, working primarily in documents, and this sort of opened up a whole new world.

DTH: What are some of the things you pay attention to when you study a piece of furniture?

EC: Well, what I am most interested in is not just simply the appearance, the form, the style, but trying to understand the structural logic, the different techniques in terms of preparations of materials, types of materials, sort of the different kinds of workmanship and construction details inside. 

DTH: Why did you decide to focus on these objects for the lecture?

EC: I was just thinking something that would be specific that would allow access from a lot of different people rather than just only concentrating on a certain time period. I thought looking at two different cultures 200 years apart would be instructive. That kind of focus, sort of working on a specific object and really deriving as much information as you can from that, is something that helps people grasp some of the ideas I’ve been working in.

DTH: A lot of your earlier work focused on American furniture. What got you interested in places like China and Japan?

EC: It was a logical extension because I work with all sorts of materials — wood, ceramic, textiles. And the more you get involved in it, the more you realize that in fact these are global objects. There is an incredible movement of objects, people, materials and technology. There always has been. It’s not right to say “American Furniture” rather than furniture in America. We tend to think that the global economy is a recent phenomenon. But all you have to do is go back through the Mediterranean trade, the silk trade, the Indian ocean trade. These are the kinds of things that are moving constantly.

DTH: What can college students, who purchase most of their furniture from Ikea or garage sales, glean from the lecture?

EC: I think it gives people the sense that as much as there is an interest in making DIY and getting out there and being creative with your own self, it might interest them as well and stir some curiosity in them instead of just getting laminated furniture from Ikea. The commonality is the creativity of the maker. What this stirs in people is the value of rigorous analysis of objects and how that can translate into awareness of the world around you.

arts@dailytarheel.com