You might think you know what you think about furniture: that it’s utilitarian, it’s background, that any influence it wields is only on other furniture and that only at a glacial pace. The power of 10 original and very crafty contemporary furniture designers, now at the Fitchburg Art Museum, very quickly disabuse one of these easy notions as contemporary furniture furnishes metaphors for our most intimate human concerns, fears and hopes. Liz Shepherd’s “Untitled: Blue” is one of the most naked metaphors to meet the visitor ascending the stairs to the exhibit. A very plain, blue-painted clothes chest splits in two by a stroke so sudden and powerful that each half rests on the jagged ends of its drawers — the broken drawers spilling out, higgledy-piggledy, the flaccid arms of jerseys, sweaters and other coverings for the needy human torso. My first reaction was an unsettled and … [Read more...] about Rearranged Furniture: Interior Effects at Fitchburg