Spotted on Instagram: a glow-up for yet another common everyday object: the plain and simple brick.
The inspiration comes from David Stark and fellow designer Jane Schulak, founder executive director of Culture Lab Detroit, who recently collaborated on a CLD benefit dinner at Woods Cathedral in Detroit. “Conceptually, I thought a lot about what Culture Lab Detroit does so beautifully, fostering connections and dialogue between ‘Detroiters and a global network of activists, thinkers, and makers,’ one brick at a time,” David writes. “The actual brick is an accessible material but a metaphor ripe with meaning in this instance.”
Stacked together and studded with candles, the humble brick becomes a sturdy, standout design idea worth borrowing for your next dinner party. Let’s take a closer look.
Above: From this grand vantage point, who would guess the tablescape is made from such simple components? The Culture Lab Detroit dinner took place in Woods Cathedral, which also played a prominent role in David and Jane’s new book, At the Artisan’s Table (see more of it in An Autumnal Tablescape in an Old Cathedral, Courtesy of David Stark and Jane Schulak).
Culture Lab Detroit’s mission is “to aid Detroit in becoming a city that prioritizes the arts as a means for community investment, sustainable neighborhood development, and social change,” according to the site, through “creative partnerships, public projects, and annual Dialogues which incorporate exhibitions, design competitions, performances, and activations of unique spaces throughout the city.” After dinner, the organization hosted a panel discussion featuring “cross-disciplinary luminaries exploring art as a mechanism for cultural analysis and, in particular, its capacity to address reality and realism in our ‘post-truth’ world,” David says.
Above: A closer look at the table settings. “I have a great love for the ready-made and get a kick out of employing objects in ways that they were never intended to be used,” David says. “I also get excited when those same objects revert to their original usage right after we ‘borrow’ them for an event. Bricks are a brilliant and unexpected proof of concept because they are so resilient and can immediately go to a construction site right after making a guest appearance as candle holders. Or they can remain candle holders if that’s what you fancy!” Above: Maximum drama, minimum cost. The team sourced 300 bricks from Michigan Masonry Materials. “They went back after the event,” David shares. Above: Of course, to replicate the look at home, you’ll need to source bricks with holes. “Some bricks have holes in them. Some bricks do not,” David says. “The most standard clay facing bricks are solid all around, but bricks with holes are created for a variety of reasons, including the need to weigh less and to serve as a cost-effective alternative to solid clay bricks.” Above: The team also sourced simple white tapers on the cheap from craftedcandles.com and candles4less.com. For added variety, they vary in size and scale, from petite 6-inch tapers to towering 36-inch versions, and some votives, sanctuary candles, and 24-inch and 10-inch tapers sprinkled in, too.
It’s the year of the humble household find as candle holder. For more impromptu idea, just see DIY: Ad-Hoc (and Edible) Candleholders from event designer Molly O’Rourke.
N.B.: This post was first published on Remodelista on March 10, 2023.
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