Chad Jensen

“My connection to craft and materials is also my connection to my beloved father who taught me the importance of labor and who demonstrated great pride in working with his hands.   Through that experience, I learned how dexterity and craft can transcend boundaries, languages, and cultures.”                                 - Chad Jensen Artist/Designer, Chad Jensen, comes from a lineage of makers who demonstrate a deep reverence for materials and processes. Growing up just outside of Detroit, MI, Jensen credits his unique exposure to automotive design, manufacturing, and innovation, for shaping his vision of what is possible when creativity and industry converge. In the late 1990’s, when the electronic music scene was exploding in Detroit, Jensen would frequent many of the illegal parties held in abandoned buildings of the once booming manufacturing capital. The excitement and electricity of being part of a cultural revolution of music and art in Detroit continues to inform his unduplicated approach to art and design. Among the vivid influences from his childhood, frequent visits to the Detroit Institute of Arts to see Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Frescoes solidified the connection between art, industry, and hand. Early in his Fall semester of 1999, while studying business, a life-altering, near-fatal motorcycle collision rendered Jensen in a weeks-long coma. Following a grueling recovery, Jensen applied to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, going on to earn a BFA in Crafts, Interdisciplinary Studies, with a specialization in sculptural furniture. Jensen is one of the first graduates of the innovative new program, where he studied under renowned industrial designers and American modern masters in the studio arts; receiving a formal education in wood, metals, hot glass, ceramics, and fibers. His professional career now spans more than 25 years in art, furniture, interiors, and architecture. He is an internationally exhibited artist and designer, participating in exhibitions from The Baker Museum-Naples to ICFF-New York and Shanghai Art Fair-China. His work has been published in Interior Design Magazine, Art Basel Guide-Miami, and Casa da Abitare-China, he was also recently named a Top 100 Business Leader by Naples Illustrated Magazine, one of Gulfshore Life Magazine’s Men & Women of the Year for his unwavering advocacy for arts and culture. In 2013, Jensen founded Method & Concept, as a division of Thomas Riley Companies.  A true pioneer of contemporary art in Southwest Florida, Jensen uniquely combined his passion for arts advocacy with his design acumen and dexterity to form the inimitable model they have today.