Vivian Beer is a furniture designer/maker based in New England, where she operates her studio, Vivian Beer Studio Works. Her sleek, abstracted metal and concrete furniture combines the aesthetic sensibilities of contemporary design, craft, and sculpture. Her furniture alters expectations and interfaces with the domestic landscape. With a strong foundation in contemporary furniture design, her research into the history of American industry, architecture, and transportation — supported in part by a 2014 Research Fellowship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum—adds intellectual rigor and specificity to her work.
Beer’s work is included in museum collections, including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Metals Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design (New York City). Her public art is exhibited in Portland, Maine and Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds an undergraduate degree from Maine College of Art and a Masters of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy. Beer has held numerous residencies at The Penland School of Craft, The State University of New York at Purchase, and San Diego State University.
“There are so few resources out there to directly and quickly help artists who have experienced a disaster. CERF+ bridges the gap that so many creatives, like myself, can fall through when things go wrong. So many of us that work in the creative sector live on the edge, project to project. With a little help we can get back up, but no one can do it alone. CERF+ was there for me when I had my own crisis and I hope, with them, to help be there for others in the same way.” – Vivian Beer