Who: Fort Collins artist-of-all trades Todd Kundla
Todd Kundla was working for a moving company in Jackson, Wyo., and making art bikes in his spare time when he entered an idea in New Belgium Brewing Co.’s “What’s Your Folly?” contest. His plan to pillage a Bozeman, Mont., junkyard for parts to create pedal-powered craft got the muckety-mucks at the Fort Collins brewery thinking that he was just the guy they needed to redefine their Tour de Fat traveling philanthropic bike, beer and music roadshow. He creates and wrangles art bikes for the brewery full time now, but he still found a moment to craft a tiny salon chair from a champagne cork, foil and wire cage that took honorable mention in Design Within Reach’s annual Champagne Chair contest. Kundla, who turned 29 on Friday, talked with us about his chair – and his bikes – from somewhere in the middle of Nevada as he traveled to Tour de Fat in San Francisco.
How many bikes do you have in the back of the box truck you’re driving? We probably have 20 to 25.
Are they all art bikes? There are two standard bikes for getting around town and hauling stuff in a bike trailer.
Can people ride the art bikes? Yeah. People just show up and ride around in a little arena where the bikes kind of live. The best part is watching people figure out how to ride them. One of the bikes has a set of castors on the front and a spring that elongates. If you lean into it, it pushes the handlebars way out.
What other experiments have you done with bikes?
I made a couple of tall bikes, and a chopper. But I wanted to get into newer things and get more playful, so I made one with car tires, and one with shoes on the wheels, and then I added extra wheels that were superfluous and come up in an arc over your head. Things like that. If I’m going to build things, I want them to be interesting.
Was it tough to design a cute, but useless tiny salon chair after focusing so much on big, functional pieces? It’s actually a functional piece. I made “Salon Chair” for my pet mouse. No. I’m just joking.
Did you get it right on the first try? My friend Rusty Lamer and I spent a week after Christmas last year just fooling around at his place in Berkeley. We hung out, drank some beers and made 10 chairs apiece. Rusty made this electric chair. It was a perfect replica of a 1930s electric chair, he even mashed the wires to make the metal strapping, a helmet and all the cables and cords. I’m sure that the only reason he didn’t win is because the death penalty is way too controversial. Someone at DWR probably has it sitting on the corner of their office desk.
Have you spent a lot of time in salons? No, but I do have a lot of hair. I think that’s why I was leaning in that direction.
What kind of champagne did your cork come from? Like I said, we were drinking beer. Those corks came from La Folie, one of New Belgium’s more esoteric beers. It comes in a “wine” bottle.
Aside from going to Tour de Fat in Durango Sept. 16 and in Fort Collins on Sept. 23 is there any place we can see your work? A lot of my work is in the backroom of the brewery piled up. But in the tasting room, there is a spinning bike on the wall. And then there is this small, hand-cranked kinetic piece that might have a plastic cup in it, which is not supposed to be there. If you go and the plastic cup is in there, take it out and throw it away!
SEE THE SEATS
You can see up close Todd Kundla’s tiny “Salon Chair,” (shown at left, along with designs by contest winner Krista Charles and Aspen designer Noah Czech’s entry “HIP HOP”) at Design Within Reach’s Boulder studio, at the corner of Broadway and Spruce Street. The local chairs, along with the winner and other honorable mentions, will be in town until 6 p.m. Monday, when the exhibit moves on to Chicago. If you can’t make the show, photos of the chairs are available at dwr.com/contestcorkaward.cfm
