Sedona resident, designer and furniture maker Glendon Good has always been making functional items. “I was always sort of a tinkerer as a kid,” Glendon says. He made his own bicycle and skateboard ramps. He eventually crafted furniture for his college dorm and just kept going from there. He’s entirely self taught and has read and studied design extensively. He says it took about a decade for him to develop his signature style, which involves metal.
The “Osiris” Table pictured along with matching stools. Every item is made out of stain polished stainless steel and teak hardwood.
“I found myself attracted to a certain aesthetic, which is contemporary style, and not traditional wood furniture. That didn’t jive with me, and what I liked was combining metal with things like leather, glass and some other products,” he says. “I was able to design and come up with a bunch of contemporary furniture lines.” He’s resided in Sedona since 1998 and ships his work out to cities like New York, Miami and Chicago. He counts interior designers and architects as fans of his creations. He says he loves both the functional – metal tends to last longer than wood – and the aesthetic appeal of contemporary furniture. “I think you’re capable of getting cleaner lines, more beautiful aesthetic because you’re able to mold the metal to shapes you can’t really mold to wood,” says Glendon.
A close-up view of one of the Osiris stools.
When he first started out, most furniture makers worked with wood over metal. He acknowledges that metal is more difficult to work with than wood, can be more expensive and requires special machines. He prefers working with metals like light weight aluminum over steel, which rusts. “Aluminum is kind of like silver, and you can use the natural product itself as an agent for its aesthetic. So I don’t have to paint it. And it does not rust and basically lasts forever in our environment here,” he says.
Glendon Good’s “Poseidon” partition element. This piece is a brushed aluminum screen with black nylon spacers and glides.
One of his most noteworthy (and award-winning) creations is Poseidon, a partition made out of aluminum tubes. He created this back in 1992. It’s appeared in the display window of the department store Bergdorf Goodman and at the Guggenheim Museum, both in New York City. This piece even sits in the permanent collection at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City and in many offices. He also created one for an Air Force base. Here’s how he came up with the idea for it: He didn’t want to create a flat screen, and he had to invent special tools to make this piece. “There are 48 tubes in that eight-foot-long screen,” he says. “In each tube, there are six holes. And each of those holes has to be in really the precise location relative to the next one and the next one so it all fits together perfectly.” What does he think makes the creation work from a design perspective? “One of the fun things about it is it separates space, but it doesn’t necessarily separate your connection to the other side,” Glendon says. “It’s not a wall per se. It’s a little bit of a see-through partition so that you’re not completely disconnected from what’s on the other side. And then the shape of it is really fun because you can actually configure it almost any way you want. It stands in a huge number of positions … It’s subtle.”
The “Maat” adjustable shelving system built with brushed aluminum and adjustable wood or bamboo shelves. This piece was originally designed for the Mesa Arts Center.
Although metal can have a cold feel to it, he offsets that feeling by adding warmth in the form of wood or soft curves. This approach can be seen in his outdoor lounge collection. He’ll use warm teak wood to complement the metal. “Together, it creates a nice warm but practical, modern aesthetic,” he says. He tends to use wood slats to get the curved look. Teak is also important since it’s durable enough to withstand Arizona’s temperatures. “I’m a stickler for using pure materials,” he says and prefers to let the material like metal or leather shine on its own. “It has its own essence that is so awesome.” He’ll also couple the curved metal frame with leather for comfort and contrast. “You can bring those two elements together in a harmonious way in a way that’s really neat,” he says. “If you built this armature out of wood, you would never get that balance.”
The “Dionysus” bookcase outfitted with bamboo shelves with a welded aluminum frame and rubber casters.
Curves are another key element in his work. He’ll even incorporate them into handrails. “I like the sensuousness of curves. They feel better. They’re more attractive. They’re comfortable. They’re easier on the touch. Our bodies are round and curved. It just makes more sense to me,” he says. Another one of his most popular residential pieces are his bookcases, specifically the Dionysus. It’s made with bamboo shelves with a metal structure. He says it’s easy to take apart too. Beyond residential and commercial furniture, he also designed the entire store at the Mesa Arts Center from the shelves to the sales counter. He also created a metal bike rack that’s located in downtown Flagstaff. In addition to making furniture, light fixtures and even teeter-totters, he’s also working on sculptures. “We all need things. We all live this life with stuff. It might as well be good stuff or beautiful stuff or things that bring you up and maybe even inspire a little bit. I love that aspect of taking something mundane and making it better, neat and really cool,” he says. “I like to work to help people make an uplifting environment.”
