1. AGlassActAs chief designer for Simon Pearce,
James Murray makes beauty transparent
ames Murray can remember the
heads of spatulas and the texture
of paper tablecloths on which he
sketched in Parisian restaurants,
the feel of fabric on a Danish mod-
ern chair upon which he sat decades ago, and the
width of the tines of a fork while spearing romaine
leaves at dinner years earlier.
No design detail is too small or inconsequential
for Murray, vice president of design for Simon
Pearce, the Vermont-based maker of fine glassware
and other home and decorative objects. Murray
is responsible for developing 150 new products
every year and keeping some other 800 extant
products relevant and up to date design-wise—
from terrariums and soup bowls to hurricane lamps
and glass polar bears. The dashing 45-year-old Murray, who lives near the company’s
headquarters with his artist wife and two children, can often be found wandering
the factory floor as glassblowers are trimming and molding molten orbs and resident
potters are busy spinning their wheels.
On a more existential level, Murray
believes, “we should process everything we
come into contact with and be engaged by
it. It’s a tough endeavor at times, but if we
don’t do it, we’re retracting from living.”
He believes, too, that the sundry objects
we encounter daily in our lives—glasses,
utensils, plates—“somehow shape us. The
designed environment influences us and
our sensibilities.”
Although Murray wanted to be a
painter and sculptor while growing up
on Long Island, he quickly discerned the
importance of industrial design while a
student at Pratt Institute. “When I found
out that an artist could design things like
cars, I thought, ‘That’s the kind of sculp-
ture I could pursue.’” In his work as
design director for Bed Bath & Beyond,
where he developed 1,500 new products
every year, and before that as a designer
for Macy’s, Murray never lost sight of his
painting and sculpting skills. “My life
at work is predominantly about aesthet-
ics,” he says. “No matter what I may be
designing, I’m always trying to provoke
what’s possible. The greatest contribu-
tion any creative person can make is to
leave some fingerprint of oneself.”
— David Masello
James
Murray
Woodbury rectangular bowl
Woodbury Pure Wrap vase
GLENNSUOKKO
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