Yvonne Mouser describes herself as a tinkerer. The Oakland-based maker toggles between art and design, fabricating objects ranging from the straightforwardly functional, such as chairs and dining tables, to the multidimensional artistic, like her sculptures and curated interactive events. No matter the medium, her process inevitably involves some level of fiddling around. “I’m interested in the ways things come together and am constantly looking for new solutions to systems of construction,” Mouser explains.
Having studied sculpture at Texas Christian University, Mouser shifted her focus toward the functional, moving to the Bay Area in 2003 to study furniture design at the California College of the Arts. “I liked the CCA program because it had one foot in fine art and the other foot in design,” says Mouser, who continues to straddle both worlds in her work today.
Mouser’s deceptively simple pieces often begin with a single directive, either from a client commission or from her many lists of thoughts to explore. “I like to read, both fiction and nonfiction, so I use that as a way to open up an idea and go down the rabbit hole,” she says. Lately, those ideas have run the gamut from concepts around gravity and chaos theory, to exploring structures of cloud formations, to more humanistic qualities such as memory.
With her dual interests in the poetic and the scientific, it’s no surprise that Mouser’s pieces are difficult to categorize. For example, her Pyrophyte Chair both invites and rebuffs sitting. Crafted out of recycled plywood, Mouser charred the curved seat and back with fire, making the idea of sitting in the chair seem somewhat treacherous. “I love the duality of something being two different things at the same time,” Mouser reflects. “It just depends on the lens you’re looking through.”
Even with more functional commissions, such as an integrated floor-mounted beechwood shelving system and screen she is currently crafting for a Bay Area home, Mouser can’t help but inject an element of play. In this case, it is simply the undulating form the piece takes. For her, sculpture and function are two sides of the same creative coin.
As Mouser prepares for a solo showing with Municipal Bonds gallery at San Francisco’s 2025 Fog Design+Art fair, she is leaning into the stories her work wants to tell. “In the end,” she says, “the things I create are physical poetry.”
Yvonne Mouser crafts both functional objects and more artistic pieces, like her sculpture Hyper-Extension.
Before building her pieces, Mouser sketches out her designs.
Design experiments and a blocky work called Remnant are above her Hunker stool.
Pyrophyte Chair by Mouser.
Other works in her studio include Cellulose II.
