Chippendale News Archives - Page 80 of 81 - Chippendale School of Furniture

Chippendale School student’s chair takes centre stage at Scottish International Storytelling Festival

Ian Stephen tells his tale with the help of Quentin’s storytelling chair, created at the Chippendale School of Furniture. Copyright Peter Dibdin.

Quentin Dimmer was delighted when his chair was chosen to take centre stage in the Scottish International Storytelling Festival based on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile at the Storytelling Centre. His storytellers’ chair, The Viking Rocker, was created earlier this year while learning the art of furniture making on an intensive, 9 month course at the Chippendale School of Furniture near Edinburgh.

Made in cherry yew and sycamore with laburnum details, Quentin’s remarkable rocking chair also won the Best Design Award 2011 from the Chippendale School of Furniture.

Donald Smith, director of the Storytelling Centre, said: “The chair is graceful and uplifting, but it also works so well for storytelling, framing the performer visually and providing a sound board to project the voice. It really was a festival highlight in its own right.”

Lindsay Corr, Marketing Officer from the Centre, added: “Quentin’s stunning chair went down a storm during the Storytelling Festival and created the perfect focal point for this year’s theme, An Island Odyssey. Storytellers enjoyed taking charge and steering their tale seated in the stunning piece of craftsmanship, while audiences were enchanted and inquisitive about the one-of-a-kind creation. We will be sad to see it leave and hope it finds a permanent home where many more people can enjoy it.”

Amongst the many well known storytellers were the author David Campbell, author and musician Bob Pegg, and musician Ewan McVicar.

The Culture Secretary, Fiona Hyslop, said that it was the biggest festival to date, with events taking place in most of Scotland’s cities and islands, celebrating Scotland’s unique culture and natural environment through stories. The Festival united the Scottish Isles with the shores and islands of the Mediterranean in an exchange of cultures and traditions, tracing the story of travel through the famous voyager Odysseus.

Katie Harrigan, David Campbell, Quentin Dimmer, Audrey Parks & Lea Taylor Quentin's chair (l to r)

After graduating from the Chippendale School of Furniture, Quentin Dimmer set up his own business, Ghillie Dhu Furniture. He says the highlights of the course “… were too many to mention. It was an amazing roller coaster.”

During his time at the Furniture School he gained a wide variety of traditional woodworking, cabinet making and furniture restoration skills, as well as learning about furniture design history.

Lewis chess set made by Quentin Dimmer at Chippendale School of Furniture

At Ghillie Dhu he set out from the beginning to make his furniture more than just furniture, but to make furniture as art. Behind all his pieces there is a story, a philosophy and an ethic. Quentin draws on his nautical past for inspiration: “I like to evoke nostalgia for our ancient history and the mystery of sites like Skara Brae in Orkney.”

Continuing the storytelling theme, he uses memories of his former sea faring life and other journeys to inspire his designs, and his studies in philosophy and art to help conceptualize his work and give it a unique story.

Chippendale Furniture School team inspired by restoring a Swiss chalet

The Swiss chalet the Chippendale Furniture team helped restore

A blog by Ali Easton (of Organic Geometry) and Anselm Fraser (Principal of the International Chippendale School of Furniture) about their working holiday restoring a Swiss chalet.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my workshop in the Chippendale Incubation Centre. Looking south, I can raise my eyes from my vice and see the quiet woods and tended fields of East Lothian climb towards the Lammermuir hills that roll over the horizon. I’m a lucky man. But I was given an offer that would take me away from that and jumped at the chance.

“I’ve spent the last two years changing my daily life. I’ve moved from a desk to a work-bench, from Powerpoint to power-tools. I gave up my life as a project manager in technology, retrained and became a furniture designer and maker, running my own one-man furniture business.

“The offer came from my woodworking teacher and now mentor, Anselm Fraser. He stuck his head round the door and said there was some work I might be interested in. Why don’t I join him in Switzerland for a week or so, working on the restoration of some very old farmhouse chalets in the glorious mountains south of Lake Geneva. The Alps trump the Lammermuirs.

“My new life has centred completely around bespoke furniture, often meaning small scale and delicate; a world of fine joints, millimetre accuracy and transparent shavings from a terrifingly sharp plane. But as a woodworker it’s impossible not to be seduced by almost all forms of the craft. Buildings and the process of building with wood had begun to fascinate me almost from the moment I began my training. And anyway, who’s not a sucker for a beautiful Swiss chalet? The chance to work on one, in fact, to save it from ruin, to savour the rustic elegance of its lines, and feel the weathered Alpine pine on the blade, was an offer I could not refuse.

“Robert Louis Stevenson famously said ‘to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.’ I travelled hopeful of learning, hopeful of broadening my woodworking experience. More prosaically though, I knew there would be some serious labour.

The chalet's wonderful balcony.

“It turned out to be a hugely enriching experience. Though, as anyone who has travelled to Switzerland will guess, not in a monetary sense. I was inundated with new ideas, new ways of working, and new techniques in wood. But of course these ideas were as old as the hills and had been known to the Swiss farmers who have lived for generations in these mountains. I just needed my eyes and let it all flood in, and what it gave me was a great respect for the people who had made what I was restoring.

“Staircases, consisting of two straight beams, laid across with great wedges of pine to form the treads, cut from sections of the round log, quartered along its length. Simple and quick to make, requiring so few tools.

“Massive roof rafters, simply felled trees, de-barked and hefted into place with manpower alone.

“Huge door hinges made entirely of wood, the vertical pins formed by carving away timber from the thick door jamb. And the matching barrel, a hole drilled in the horizontal rails on the door. The door simply drops into place, the barrels falling down over the pins. No metal work required, no screws to buy, so few tools required to make it. So elegant!

“These ancient solutions to everyday problems of living and shelter on a high Swiss mountainside have lots to say to us today. Firstly, these houses were built by the families who went on to live in them. In today’s world, surrounded by a dry, long-winded public debate about the benefits of university versus vocational studies, it’s refreshing to see that some people recognised what skills they needed to live life and just got on with it.

“Secondly, materials were local. Even today there’s no road in to these upper houses, just a very steep path through a forest. If you wanted to bring materials in then you would have to carry them on your back. It made sense to use what was around you, and in turn to manage the landscape carefully to ensure those materials were always going to be available. The forest is fuel, building materials, avalanche protection.

“In the modern building trade timber is considered one of the greenest building materials. The people who built these houses knew it instinctively and their descendents today still manage the forest with the long view, with intelligence and respect. The result: nature provides infinitely.

Amazingly simple wooden hinges!

“And waste is easily dealt with because almost everything was wood. Left in the open uncovered it will quickly rot back into the ground. Nutrients return to the soil and no landfill problems to worry about.

“I spent my time there soaking up the influences and ideas, enjoying the low-tech but ingenious designs, and realizing how these people had been able to build houses, furnish them and live in relative harmony with their environment.

“So having returned to my own furniture workshop, with the Lammermuirs again on the horizon, I reflect on the trip and what it means for wood craft here in modern Scotland. While the ancient Caledonian forest is largely gone, Scotland does have forests of both conifer and broadleaf, and the old rule still applies: if managed well, nature will provide infinitely.

“I work almost entirely in wood that comes from within 30 miles of my workshop. Locally we have some fabulous oak, elm, ash and sycamore, all with beautiful grain and figure (there’s some speculation that that’s a result of the battering these Scottish trees have taken from the weather). And there’s a vibrant scene of crafts people working all around the nation, from green oak house-frame builders, through unique bespoke furniture workshops to wooden jewellery makers.

“Local materials, local knowledge and local crafts people make a powerful combination, especially when inspired by the best the world has to offer. So by all means travel to Switzerland – you’ll love it – but you’ll find some beautiful wood craft on your own doorstep.”

Anselm Fraser, the Principal of the Chippendale School of Furniture, adds:

“Ali Easton, Graham Davies (one of the Furniture School’s tutors) and I had an inspiring time in Switzerland. A working holiday expands your horizons, and you come back refreshed, more creative and more profitable.

“Every year I do some building work, always during the summer months because I love being outside in the sunshine. One of the objectives of the course that I run at the Chippendale International School of Furniture is to show my students the big picture and that life is not about working solidly at the bench for 45 weeks of the year. How about only 35 weeks?

“To achieve this you need to diversify your business: making furniture is work, but using your woodworking skills overseas, building and restoring a wooden chalet is not really work and spices up your year!

“I like to open up the eyes of recent graduates to the many interesting things you can do with woodworking skills.

Simple but strong.

“When setting up your business you are supposed to write a business plan but that can be challenging when you can’t foretell the future of your business. You need more time, so we have a Business Incubation Centre at the school where recent graduates benefit from subsidised workshop space, and access to tools, machinery and some mentoring.”

Chippendale School of Furniture gilder teaches students to show off

An interview with Gareth Evans, a gilder and restorer, who spends two weeks each year teaching gilding at the leading furniture design college, the Chippendale School of Furniture.

Chippendale School of Furniture students choose how they apply gilding.

Gareth Evans studied painting at St Martin’s College of Art in London which he loved. Afterwards, he worked with a friend at a gilding workshop on Fulham Road. He went on to gild alongside Paul Ferguson, President of the Master Gilders’ Association. Next, with a little help from the Prince’s Trust, Gareth set up his own gilding workshop in West Wales.

Gareth does a lot of work for antique dealers on the King’s Road and Pimlico Road in London. His clients include the interior design trade.

“I’ve done a big project at the Corinthia Hotel near the Strand using ‘verre eglomise’ gold gilding onto glass to create an amazing mirror effect on the ceiling,” says Gareth Evans. “My client didn’t want to use mirrored glass but wanted to use top spec finishes. The Corinthia is the biggest modern gilding project in Europe. Depending upon the angle, the ceiling either looks like a graphite rubbing or a mirror; it changes between looking transparent and solid. Thirty thousand triangles of glass were laid back-to-back to achieve this effect.”

The Corinthia Hotel, which has 294 rooms and London’s largest spa as well as infamous connections to Muammar Quaddafi, has a website which describes it as “a graceful and historic luxury hotel that sets new standards in opulence and comfort. … our new flagship provides state-of-the-art facilities in an eminent building dating back to 1885 and the Empire days of Queen Victoria… Our Undisputed Jewel in the Crown.”

Gareth continues: “I’m currently working on five pieces of furniture – nineteenth century oval mirrors – for the Olympian Antique Fair. Another piece of work is for Holkham Hall in Norfolk.

“Gilding is all about reputation, training and experience. There has always been demand for gilding. Some of the most valuable pieces of furniture are created using gilding. Over the centuries, there’s been no better way than gilding to show off your wealth.”

When asked about his most unusual commission, he said: “I once gilded a model’s eyelids for a fashion shoot!”

Chippendale School of Furniture students learn how to gild on their intensive furniture deisign course.

And, on the Furniture School:

“I enjoy my visit to the Chippendale School of Furniture. It’s nice to see people doing something creative. Some of the students have given up lucrative careers to learn about furniture design at the Furniture School.

“I teach the students how to prepare wood for the process of gilding. The process itself hasn’t changed much since the Renaissance – believe it or not, we use the same tools you’d use in a Renaissance workshop! The students learn how to silver the glass to make a mirror. They gild the frame and some other pieces of furniture as well.

“Gilding is all about beauty and the importance of that can’t be over stated,” Gareth concludes.

Gareth Evans can be contacted on 07969 030472 or garethevans@blueyonder.co.uk

Former Chippendale Furniture student Hannah Honeywill selected for prestigious Threadneedle Prize exhibition

Former student Hannah Honeywill's 'Unfunction/Function’ chair selected for prestigious Threadneedle Prize exhibition.

Former Chippendale Furniture student and Yorkshire artist Hannah Honeywill has just been chosen for the final exhibition of the Threadneedle Prize, the UK’s most prestigious competition for representational art and sculpture.

Her piece, ‘Unfunction/Function’, a reshaped chair which questions how people experience the form and function of everyday objects, was selected from 4,300 entries. Honeywill is now one of just 45 artists in line for the £25,000 prize and her work will be exhibited at London’s Mall Galleries between the 22nd of September and 8th of October.

Hannah, who was a furniture student at the Chippendale School of Furniture in 2006-07, commented: “Those furniture design and furniture making skills have come in useful!”

The Threadneedle Prize is one of the largest prizes for a single work of art in the UK and will be awarded at the close of the exhibition by a prestigious panel of judges including Godfrey Worsdale, director of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Julie Lomax, head of visual arts for the Arts Council and Lisa Milroy, head of graduate painting at The Slade School of Fine Art.

Honeywill lives in Hebden Bridge and teaches art at Calderdale College, Todmorden, to mature students hoping to access higher education. She trained at Camberwell College of Art, London, holds a degree in Visual Arts, spent a year learning the practical art of furniture design at Chippendale School of Furniture in Scotland, and now works from studios at Warley Springs, near Halifax.

Hannah Honeywill’s reshaped chair.

Visitors Invited to Furniture School’s Summer Student Exhibition

The Chippendale International School of Furniture near Gifford is throwing its doors open for its Student Exhibition on Monday 13th and Tuesday 14th of June (6-8pm). This is an opportunity for visitors to see and buy the amazing pieces of furniture created by the students.

Hand-crafted, bespoke kitchen designed by Anselm Fraser Furniture

The renowned Chippendale International School of Furniture runs intensive nine month furniture making courses in all aspects of furniture design, making and restoration, limited to only 20 students each year. The Furniture School attracts students from a wide range of ages and backgrounds, from America and Asia, to Europe and the UK. Hobby level short courses in wood working techniques are also offered.

Anselm Fraser, who founded the Furniture School in 1985, is regarded as one of the UK’s leading exponents on the art of furniture making. Through Anselm Fraser Furniture, he also designs, makes and restores furniture in East Lothian using air-dried, locally sourced wood.
Anselm and his specialist team build hand crafted kitchens, design bespoke furniture and restore antique furniture. He says that “No project is too big, small, complex or odd!”

Kitchen designed and hand-built by Anselm Fraser Furniture

Tara McIntosh, a recent graduate of the Furniture School, who set up her own business ‘Twiggd’ making big bright wooden jewellery and furniture in the School’s Business Incubation Centre, says:

“You eat, breath, talk, live, practically nothing else for 9 months. It was difficult at times but amazing! The most intense but best 9 months of my life.

Furniture designed by Tara McIntosh at the Chippendale School of Furniture

“The course highlights for me were: carving and gilding; marquetry; learning about types of wood, the practical things about wood (timber technology); and when Anselm Fraser set his eyebrows on fire!

“The tutors on this course are fantastic. Having spent around 6 years as a student in creative studio environments at art schools I probably have more to compare it to than students from other backgrounds. The level of skill and expertise is superb and the time they spend with you, helping and experimenting on things, was just amazing.”

The student exhibition on 13th and 14th of June (6-8pm) is at The Chipppendale International School of Furniture, Myreside Grange, Gifford, East Lothian EH41 4JA. More information is available from: www.anselmfraser.com, 01620 810680 or www.chippendale.co.uk

Greek train encounter leads to Chippendale Furniture School

An interview with Chippendale Furniture alumni, Tara McIntosh, who now runs her business, Twiggd, from the Chippendale Incubation Centre.

What sort of work were you doing before becoming a student at the Chippendale International School of Furniture?

“I have an HND in Fashion Design and a Degree in Textile Design (weave and tapestry) from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art so I’m very much from a creative background. I had always wanted to learn cabinet making skills and had heard of the Chippendale School of Furniture years before but there was no way I could afford it.

“The summer before I started the course I was on a 27 hour train journey from Greece to Hungary where I randomly met a guy from Edinburgh. He was just about to start at ECA studying Furniture Design and he brought up Chippendale Furniture and I got really excited! I had just inherited some money so the day I got back from Hungary I contacted Isabel and they had one spot left on the course starting in 2 weeks! I reckon it was fate.”

What were the highlights of your 9 month furniture design course?

“Without a doubt the best thing about the course is the fact that you are completely immersed in it. It’s so busy and demanding, most people are living near the furniture making School, many sharing. The School is in this amazing East Lothian countryside, just far enough away from the city [only half an hour from Edinburgh].

Furniture created by Chippendale Furniture alumni Tara McIntosh.

“You eat, breath, talk, live, practically nothing else for 9 months. It was difficult at times but amazing! The most intense but best 9 months of my life.

“The course highlights for me were:
•    Carving and gilding;
•    Marquetry;
•    Learning about types of wood, the practical things about wood (timber technology); and
•    When Anselm Fraser [the School Principal] set his eyebrows on fire!

“The tutors on this course are FANTASTIC. Having spent around 6 years as a student in creative studio environments at art schools I probably have more to compare it to than students from other backgrounds. The level of skill and expertise is superb and the time they spend with you, helping and experimenting on things, was just amazing.

“All the tea and biscuits were nice too!”

What are the objectives for your business?

“When leaving Chippendale I set up ‘Twiggd’ which combines all of my loves – fashion, illustration, interior design and the joy of craftsmanship.

“My personal preference for furniture is colourful and quirky but I also make and restore traditional pieces! I like to mix bold colour with the beauty of natural wood. My work is somewhat illustrative, sometimes literally with inlaid marquetry designs, appliqued upholstery or statement handles and sometimes more subtly through shape and hints of colour.

“I also ‘up-cycle’ unloved and broken furniture, restore antique furniture, and carve and gild bespoke mirrors.

“My jewellery tends to be big, bright and illustrative with a bit of a retro or vintage feel. I work mostly in sycamore (a pale, creamy wood that takes colour beautifully) and Walnut which is the colour of chocolate. I also have a love of floral fabrics, the art of applique and some good old fashioned hand stitching.

A wooden brooch made by Tara McIntosh of Twiggd.

“I sell my fashion accessories at Art Markets and in about 10 boutiques and galleries in Edinburgh, Glasgow and East Lothian. I also sell online through Etsy and Folksy which are ‘handmade marketplaces’ for designers and artists.

“Through networking at Fairs and markets I’ve met lots of likeminded artist, designers and shop owners and seem to have found a niche that I’m very happy in! There is a massive resurgence in ‘craft’ and craft fairs at the moment which is described by some at ‘Neo Craft’ or ‘Alt Craft’.

“My plans for the immediate future are to apply to some of the big fairs happening in London over the summer with the goal of getting my work into some London Boutiques.

“I hope to start using laser cutting (I’ve struggled with this as I’m a purist at heart but I also need to be practical) in some of my pieces to speed up the very labour intensive processes as orders are getting bigger and hopefully will continue to do so!

“I would also like to have time to tackle some of the ‘up-cycling’ furniture projects I’m really excited about but haven’t had time to start yet, and I’m looking into lighting and other home wares.”

Why did you choose to base yourself in the Chippendale Furniture Incubation Centre?

“Because I wasn’t ready to go out into the big bad world! The continuing help and support of everyone at Chippendale and the other students who also stayed on was totally invaluable.”

“Some photos of my work can be seen at my Twiggd website and more images and information can be found at on the Twiggd Facebook page and on Folksy.com.”