Today we’d like to introduce you to Sasha Ritter Sherman.
Sasha, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Literature, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with myself. For about a year after college, I lived in Edinburgh, Scotland working as a server at a restaurant and traveled around Europe. It was during my travels that I found myself more and more drawn to architecture, spaces and design so once I was back in the U.S. I took a few classes in Landscape Architecture and Graphic Design before deciding to go to graduate school for a masters in architecture at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
In architecture school, I felt that I had finally found something that made me feel excited and inspired – design. I was then and am now inspired by pioneers like – Isamu Noguchi, Charles and Ray Eames, Peter Zumthor & Shigeru Ban. There are so many artists and designers that I’m inspired by now too but those listed are the ones that I think of time and time again. I think with all of the designers in that list, I am most inspired by their use of materials – often just a single material – that they then explore and use to convey sophisticated ideas. Most of them have also worked in various mediums or disciplines. I try for this approach in my own work and find it fun to start with exploring or playing with a single material and then let the ideas originate from there. A sense of playfulness in design is always important to me. I’m also always looking to make the simplest version of whatever idea I’m trying to get across – how can I make something that achieves what I’m looking for in the most simple yet elegant way?
Pretty early on in my architecture program, thanks to a furniture design studio, I veered from the traditional architecture path and became interested in designing furniture and smaller objects. I loved that some of the things that I was learning in architecture school could apply to furniture or smaller objects and that furniture has a sculptural quality to it. In this studio, I made a mobile out of white ceramic and wood and a chair made of molded plexiglass and maple. I still have them both! Designing at a smaller scale felt a lot more playful and accessible to me.
After graduation, I bounced around – I took a road trip around the U.S., then moved back home to figure out what was next. While living back in my home town I ended up meeting and working for my now good friend, Chi-lin Pendergrast, a photographer. Together we started a small design-related store in Newport Beach called LMNOP. That little store was short-lived but starting it and working with Chi-lin, who was and is very supportive of me and my work, really helped me to feel like I could make it in the world. After LMNOP closed, I decided to take a leap and moved to New York City to work in the design industry and to make my own work. I soon took a job working for Lindsey Adelman, a lighting designer, in NY for four years. I wrapped fixtures and packed boxes at first and then worked my way up and started building the fixtures as well as working on design projects for Lindsey.
The itch to return to the west came on strong for me after almost four years in NY. Luckily, Lindsey Adelman was also becoming interested in having a west coast presence. The timing was right and I ended up helping her to open her Los Angeles outpost, as the studio director, in 2016. Throughout all of my time in NY and LA I have also been working on my own design projects – a few lamps, a credenza, a collection of stools designed in collaboration with Armand Graham, a mobile and a few other things as well as drawing and painting on the side, which is endlessly fun.
In June of 2018, I moved to Santa Barbara, for love, while still working remotely for Lindsey Adelman in LA as well as taking on a new contract position in the Color Design Department at Patagonia. Eventually, I was offered a full-time position with the Color Design team at Patagonia and accepted it right before giving birth to my first child at the end of June. It’s been an exciting ride over the past several years. Now, being able to spend time at home with my 2-month-old daughter is incredibly rewarding and also feels like a great time to reflect on where I’ve been and where I hope to go creatively in the future.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It took me a while to find my way toward making a living through creativity and design – when I was growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of creative people but not many who worked professionally as creatives. I think in part because of this and in part, because I needed a lot of time to develop confidence in myself and in my work, it took quite a bit of experimenting and venturing into uncharted territory for me to feel out my path and then to continue down it.
Though my winding path was challenging at times, I think that it ultimately broadened my interests and gave me the opportunity to try out different ways of working creatively. I like that the scope of my work is wide and varied. I feel open to and excited about working in diverse media and with various companies or people. I am often challenging myself to see just how transferrable my skills are – can I figure out, with the tools that I have, how to do x, y or z? Or do I need to learn something new or work with someone else who is an expert in what I’m trying to achieve? Design is so cool in that way – sometimes it’s just an idea and a sketch and then the real challenge is how, or with whom, to execute it. Figuring out all of that logistical stuff, how to actually make an idea a reality, is always super fun to me and part of what drew me to design in the first place.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m a designer working in various mediums – furniture, objects, drawings, and paintings mostly. Lately, I’ve been having a lot of fun collaborating with my husband Joel on projects for our home and baby daughter. We’ve designed and made a few brass lamps, 3D printed and then cast bronze candlestick holders, made wallpaper from our drawings for our daughter’s nursery and have plans to make her a mobile for above her crib. Hopefully, we’ll get the mobile finished soon!
I also have a full-time job working for Patagonia on the Color Design Team and love how it has me thinking about and looking at color all of the time. I work with a fun and talented team of designers and am learning so much every day. I feel really fortunate to be there.
What were you like growing up?
When I think back to how I was as a kid growing up in Southern California, my feeling is that I was probably much like I am now. I liked to camp and be outside in nature, I was sporty and creative, probably a little bit silly too.
One of my earlier creative memories is of a time when I was about 9 or 10 years old. Someone had given me a fluorescent orange rubber sunglass holder – a thin, stretchy rubber tube that you place on either end of the glasses to keep them around your neck. I recall spending a good amount of time entertaining my parents and brother with the various other things that that tube could be. It could be a belt, a headband, a bracelet wrapped several times around the wrist or even the bicep. It could be a sandal if you pulled it just so around your foot & toes, or maybe it could be a strap for a camera, a muzzle or one-sided suspender? I remember my family cracking up while watching me do this and that I was having a ton of fun trying to think of more and more ways that that neon tube could be contorted into the next useable object. I think I’m still kind of doing this same thing just with materials other than neon rubber tubes!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sasharitter.com
- Email: [email protected]
Wire Frame Credenza by Sasha Ritter Sherman, metal base for the credenza fabricated by Harry Gold. Pictured with ceramic bowl by Tracy Wilkinson of TW Workshop & Moon Globe lamp by Kate Anderson. Art on the wall behind by Lana Fee Rassmussen.
Wire Frame Credenza by Sasha Ritter Sherman, metal base for the credenza fabricated by Harry Gold. Pictured with ceramic bowl by Tracy Wilkinson of TW Workshop & Moon Globe lamp by Kate Anderson. Art on the wall behind by Lana Fee Rassmussen.
Totoro Collection, multi-use tables, stools & objects for the home, a collaboration with Armand Graham. Solid maple stump. Photo by Armand Graham
Secret Mobile by Sasha Ritter Sherman. Terracotta & brass. Pictured with Kate Anderson’s Moon Globe lamp & Armand Graham’s wooden side table. Art on the wall behind by Lana Fee Rassmussen.
Paintings by Sasha Ritter Sherman hanging at BARRO (now closed) in Ojai. Photo on far left by Scott Soens. Ceramics by Mike Soens & Megan Hooker. Furniture by Darrick Rassmussen of Killscrow.
Paintings by Sasha Ritter Sherman hanging at BARRO (now closed) in Ojai. Ceramics by Mike Soens & Megan Hooker.
Sling Shelf by Sasha Ritter Sherman. Leather & brass. Ceramic bowl by Alisa Ochoa.
Topo Stack Rings by Sasha Ritter Sherman. Pictured in polished brass.
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