Two nights ago at the Anchorage Museum I was privileged to listen to a presentation by Eames Demetrios, and then meet and talk with him briefly afterwards. As the grandson of groundbreaking designers Charles and Ray Eames, and current head of the Eames Office, Demetrios acts as caretaker/historian and archivist, providing continuity and keeping their work and influence at the forefront, while administering ongoing projects.
The presentation was bound to be fascinating, and he didn't disappoint. He said that at the core of Charles and Ray's design philosophy was a welcoming accommodation of guests; and this binds together the various design disciplines, in all cultures of the world. That was a revelation, and exciting to contemplate for a number of reasons. One gets multiple opportunities in life to host guests [and then later, to be a guest] and it is amazing that so many have no idea how to do it. As a guest, those times when the host is gracious and engaged are golden. Those are the memories that are treasured forever. As a Designer, this realization tends to put the work effort in focus and context.
Charles and Ray launched a dizzying array of pursuits, many of which didn't seem to go together or have a logical progression from one to the next. Others working in the 1940s and '50s had a similar bent, and I see it in a few people working that way today but it is less common.
The trait I most appreciated about them is perseverance, and the stories and anecdotal evidence Demetrios presented really reinforced it. There were many prototypes that absolutely didn't work, and projects that were abandoned because they were ill-suited for one reason or another. In some cases it took years of experimentation to lead to a desirable/useful result. Rather than consider any of these dead ends as failures, requiring redress and restructuring to prevent the similar failures in the future, they celebrated them. Such commitment is the major ingredient to their success and ability to innovate over and over.
Demetrios repeated some of Charles and Ray's quotes I'd heard before ["We take our pleasures seriously"] and filled in some gaps about certain struggles they experienced. Most of all, they brought joy and humor to most of what they did. The Do Nothing Machine was nothing short of pure genius.
In the beginning, I knew of Eames because of their fiberglass shell chair, a mid-century modern classic. The armchair version particularly is astonishingly comfortable, while not looking like it would be. It was a critical and financial success for them. It is only a small part of their body of work. I wondered what Charles, who died in 1978 and Ray, who left this world ten years later would do with an iPhone. [Nothing that most of the rest of us could possibly dream up, no doubt.]