O U T S K IR T S
О
Left:
Tribute in Light
memo-
rial sketch, Sept. 13,
2001. An annual light
installation first realized
in 2002.
Below:
Boar's Head commer-
cial, 2006,concept
sketch and film still
from onion scooper set,
director Greg Ramsey.
Opposite right:
Avon “Bond Girl" com-
mercial, 2008,concept
sketch of wall safe prop,
detail still of safe, set
still with Gemma
Artcrton.
Opposite far right:
Hewlett-Packard/
Disney Rocket Trans-
porter commercial,
2003, prop concept
sketch, film still, scale
model with LaVcrdicrc.
The Craft
of Illusion
S T O R Y B Y
Jeremy Lebensohn
Production designer Julian
LaVerdiere creates imagined
worlds B a t only seem real.
After visiting the New York City studio
of production designer Julian LaVerdiere,
I may never see another commercial without
being aware of the elaborately collaborative
and warp-speed process that goes into it.
The Cooper Union- and Yale-trained former
sculptor has locked into a world where his
passions, talent and discipline converge to
create images as ephemeral as the last sham-
poo ad you muted on T V or as memorable
as
Tribute in Light,
a 9/11 memorial©.
As a child, LaVerdiere learned to throw
pots under the guidance of his father, the
ceramic sculptor Bruno LaVerdiere. Later,
as a teenager accompanying his father when
he taught workshops at the Penland and
Haystack craft schools, Julian took jewelry
making and metalwork. He had already been
introduced to metal and sculpture by his
grandfather, an inventor, aviation mechanic
and a master fly-tier. Although today he
feels that his aesthetic and material interests
couldn’t be more different from his father’s,
he says, “If it weren’t for my father, I don’t
think I’d have gone into the arts.” Years lat-
er, using a metal lathe in an advanced physics
class at Yale, he remembered how similar
it felt to throwing a pot on a wheel.
LaVerdiere’s entry into production
design work is the result of following his
030 anterican craft dec/jan 10
Find more magazines at www.magazinesdownload.com
