carpentry school Archives - Chippendale School of Furniture

Professional, intermediate

Eion Gibbs, who graduated from our professional course in June, was also our first intermediate course student.

He first came to us on our month-long course while recovering from malaria.

He’d been working as a film cameraman on two charitable projects, the Kilimanjaro Project and Trees 4 Kilimanjaro.

Both charities are highlighting the environmental damage that is being done to Africa’s largest mountain, and the surrounding farmers who are affected.

Eion enjoyed the intermediate course so much that it inspired a change of career direction, and a new life as a professional woodworker.

His stand-out piece during his year with us was a monumental piece of furniture standing five feet tall.

“The Shape Shifter Cabinet” contained twenty-two compartments, with most of them being a different size.

Magnet

It comprised three horizontal sections, which were interchangeable, with each compartment being opened by a magnet.

It was therefore a functional and quirky piece of furniture, crafted from Oak, Sycamore, Ash, spalted Beech and Elm.

Its front was decorated in a harlequin triangle pattern fashioned from Ash and Oak. Adding to its charm, it also had secret compartments and a gilded chess set that folded into a drawer.

After graduation, most of our students take a well-earned holiday.

Not so Eion, who had already won his first commission – for an even more monumental piece.

His commission for a shepherd’s hut was for a customer in Southampton. It was to be a surprise 50th birthday present for his client’s wife.

The humble shepherd’s hut, which stands on iron wheels, was once a common sight across much of the country.

Lambing

It allowed shepherds to keep a close eye on their flocks, particularly during lambing season.

But it’s making something of a revival, because it can be put to a whole number of uses – and doesn’t usually need planning permission.

Nowadays, shepherd’s huts are used as garden rooms, spare bedrooms, reading nooks, outdoor gyms, or home offices.

Only recently, former prime minister David Cameron commissioned one to be his writing room.

Eion’s hut was completed with a bed and wood-burning stove. Other shepherd’s hut designs can have a toilet or shower.

The school has a shepherd’s hut on our campus and, underlining their flexibility, it was used last summer as a bedroom for one of our students.

This year it was used as a physiotherapy treatment room, by the girlfriend of one of our professional course students.

Eion’s Douglas Fir hut had tongue-and-groove Pine interior walls, Douglas Fir floor, six windows and double doors.

Eion has set up Belladrum Woodworking and is staying on at the school in incubation space.

These spaces, Myreside Studios, allow graduates to more easily make the transition into professional woodworking.

They have full access to the school’s equipment and, if they have a problem, they can seek help from our tutors.

It’s all part of the school’s holistic approach, giving our students the best tuition and a valuable aftercare package.

We’re delighted that Eion is staying on with us, and we wish him every success.

Note: We still have two vacancies for our professional nine-month course that starts next month.

Fumed and golden mirror

Many students come to the Chippendale school having had previous careers in something else entirely.

Campbell Paterson from Grantown on Spey in the Scottish Highlands was no exception.

His early career was working offshore in the oil and gas sector. Then he spent another three years in landscape gardening and tree surgery.

He therefore had a basic understanding of the raw material that goes into fine furniture.

Although learning professional woodworking had been in his mind for several years, he had little woodworking experience.

The only training he’d received was in spoon carving, and that only gives limited skills.

Advanced skills

But lack of woodworking skills or experience is no impediment to coming on one of our professional courses.

Because, over a nine-period, we first teach our students the basics of design and making. Then we give them all the advanced skills they will ever need to practice as professional furniture designers.

It’s a course that we’ve been running for over thirty years. So we know everything about how to build our students’ confidence alongside their design and making skills.

But our professional course is also about working with students of all ages and proficiencies. So it’s a course that suits everyone, whether or not they have ever picked up a chisel.

Campbell’s long-term goal is to return to the Highlands and set up his own woodworking business.

But, for the immediate future, he’s basing his new business in incubation space at the school.

Myreside Studios

Our incubation space, Myreside Studios, allows graduate students to easily set up in business. They have continued use of the school’s equipment and machinery.

It also gives them access to our tutors so that, if they have a design or making problem, help is on hand.

One of Campbell’s most beautiful pieces was his mirror, a decorative item that all our students have to make.

It’s a segment of the course that coincides with us bringing in a world-renowned gilding expert to teach them that important skill.

Many of our students therefore use their new gilding skills to decorate their mirrors, and Campbell was no exception.

His stunning mirror in white and yellow gold, framed in fumed Oak, was a thing of exceptional beauty.

Drinks cabinet

Gilded with 12 carat white gold and 24 carat yellow gold, it was artificially weathered to give it an antique look.

His other wonderful piece was a drinks cabinet for displaying one bottle only.

It was therefore a cabinet to showcase only your finest and oldest bottle of whisky.

Made from fumed Oak, with Sycamore veneer on the outside, it had flamed Mahogany veneer on the inside.

The cabinet opened vertically with a three-leaf hinged door, and inside was an oak stand with solid brass surround for that special bottle.

Campbell’s new business is Campbell Paterson Furniture.

Stribh to overcome

Some students come to us straight from school, but many leave it a few years before enrolling at the Chippendale school.

Many feel pressured to go into higher education and then into a job that they find unfulfilling.

That’s when it becomes a choice between the conventional or following their dreams.

We believe at the Chippendale school that you’re never too old, or too young, to choose fine furniture design and making.

One far-flung student on our 2018/19 professional course was Kent Turner, from Washington State in the USA.

He had been looking to make a career change into fine furniture design and making for several years.

Seattle

But for Kent, then working as a builder on an island north of Seattle, a decision finally had to be made.

He therefore came to us knowing something about working with wood, having been building timber frame houses.

But that doesn’t mean that we only take students with prior knowledge of woodworking.

In our experience, some of our best students are those who are complete novices.

What’s important is that students come to us with a thirst for knowledge and the acquisition of skills.

Our nine-month professional course is intensive and we expect students to work hard.

That’s exactly what Kent did, and proved himself to also have very real design and making skills.

Signature

For us, his signature pieces were a pair of funky and quirky chairs.

But, take away the quirkiness and they are also very comfortable.

That balance between form and function is very important in furniture design.

Because it’s all very well designing something with a visual WOW factor, but if it doesn’t perform well it’s a design fail.

Kent called his chairs ‘Stribh and ceannsaich’ which is Scottish Gaelic for ‘struggle and overcome.’

It’s what Kent had to do, in learning his new trade and making his design ideas work.

His chairs were designed around ease of disassembly, held together by Japanese joinery, dowels and wedges.

Sculpted

The feet of Kent’s chairs were made from yew, and the seats and backs from sycamore, with walnut accents.

Those accents were sculpted into one of chairs, where one side of it appeared to be splitting away.

It was a natural fault in the wood and Kent’s solution was to ‘stitch’ the chair back together with walnut strips.

The clever design flourish was to place the walnut strips on different places on each side of the chair, giving the impression of crude sewing.

Kent wanted to put a little of Scotland into his chairs, hence the stribh and ceannsaich name.

But it’s also a reflection of the sheer hard work that went into their creation.

For example, sanding the feet alone took six-and-a-half hours of toil.

However, Kent struggled and eventually overcame.

We wish him every success in his new career.

Superbike to “work of art” wins Forfar man Demarco Prize

A Forfar man who graduated last week from Scotland’s only furniture design school has won the prestigious Richard Demarco Design Prize.

Nick Smith (32) has transformed his Kawasaki Ninja 600cc motorbike into a “work of art,” according to Professor Richard Demarco CBE, Scotland’s leading arts commentator.

Nick is now creating Strathmore Restore from a new workshop in Forfar, and will be specialising in furniture restoration, kitchen design and creating bespoke furniture.

Nick’s project during his year at the Chippendale International School of Furniture was to painstakingly create intricate burr ash veneers with walnut accents to replace the bike’s original plastic fairings.

He also gilded the windscreen and wing mirrors and, to create the final “wow” factor, highlighted parts of the new veneered fairings with 23.5 carat gold.

The Chippendale school in East Lothian takes students from around the world for its immersive furniture design courses. This year, students came from the UK, USA, Germany, Austria, Poland, India, Singapore, South Korea and Australia.

“Nick’s achievement has been to take something mass-produced and, with artistic talent and infinite skill, recreate it as a unique work of art,” said Professor Demarco.

Nick, who is originally from Montrose, will be splitting his time between life as a woodworker and his other entrepreneurial venture, Strathmore Brewery – a new Forfar artisan brewery that has just started supplying a range of ales that it says “reflect the heritage and soul of Scotland.”

He is a graduate of Robert Gordon University where he studied robotics, and who then worked as a control and automation specialist on large-scale computer systems.

Nick said that “Winning the award is an unexpected dream come true. Combining my new found passion working with wood, with a long standing passion for motorcycles was lot of work but a lot of fun too.”

Anselm Fraser, principal of the Chippendale school, said that “the delicate skills involved in bespoke furniture design and making can be applied in different ways, and Nick has demonstrated real skill and talent in turning something manufactured into an utterly original thing of beauty.”

Talented students and fantastic furniture

Our Edinburgh graduate exhibition is being held ithis year in Greyfriars Kirk (1 Greyfriars, EH1 2QQ) on Monday 12^th ( 1pm – 8pm) and Tuesday 13^th of June (10am – 8pm).

This is followed by an Open Evening (6-8pm) at the Chippendale school (Myreside Grange, East Lothian EH41 4JA) on Friday 16^th June and Open Day (10am – 6pm) on Saturday 17^th June.

Here are just some of the talented furniture makers whose works will be on show, and we’ll feature other students’ work in later newsletters and posts.

Jin Sung Choi

Always interested in both design and the practical skills in making furniture, he hopes to go onto further training in Japan, to develop his technique in carving and gilding.

He then hopes to set up his own business in South Korea where he thinks the market is beginning to embrace outside influences.

“South Korean furniture is traditionally made from solid wood, often inlaid with mother of pearl and with brass fastenings and handles,” says Jin.

“I am more interested in bringing a delicate Western approach, and creating furniture that is both Oriental and classical.”

One of his signature pieces is a stunning desk in solid fumed oak, with turned legs, brass fixings – incorporating a hidden compartment with a hidden key.

“I believe that affluent young people in South Korea are moving away from factory-made furniture towards hand-made and bespoke. My business will aim to meet that growing aspirational market,” he says.

Rob Vowles

Until this year, Rob Vowles was more at home climbing trees than using them to make fine furniture.

The former tree surgeon from London has worked in several countries and continents, including Canada, Sweden and in parts of Africa.

His fiendishly-clever drinks cabinet, made from a variety of woods including elm, red gum, oak and ash, is his signature piece from the furniture course.

Opening the cabinet is the clever part, because to do so involves solving a series of puzzles that are designed to baffle even the most sober.

Based on ideas from Japanese puzzle boxes, the drinks cabinet has a sliding door mechanism that, when several elements are aligned correctly, reveals a secret puzzle door – and an even more secret lock and separate key to open it.

Inside, the drinks cabinet is just as stunning, with elaborate marquetry panels and a mirrored back.

On graduation, Rob intends to set up his business in London.

Colin Bate

Colin Bate, originally from Birmingham but now living in Perthshire, is an outdoors sort of person who is also a member of his local mountain rescue team.

He moved north from Birmingham to work in outdoor education but, over the years, found himself less and less outside and more and more behind a desk.

Hence his decision to change track and enrol at the Chippendale school and, after graduation, to set up Highwood Furniture in his adopted Alyth, to make and design furniture and bespoke kitchens.

His signature pieces include a drinks cabinet that perfectly reflects his love of nature and the outdoors, with an oak frame, elm top and a free-form tree design in spalted beech running across the front.

Another stand-out piece is a steam-bent desk in olive ash and oak which he made “to test the limits of what can be achieved with steam bending,” said Colin.

“I love the precision of furniture making, and the disciplines involved in turning a design idea into a practical piece of furniture. But I also enjoy the creativity that goes into making a desk or cabinet into something absolutely unique,” he says.

Roland Pettet

Roland, for the time being at least, has swapped a life on the open sea for a furniture design course on dry land.

A graduate in navigation and maritime science from Plymouth University, Roland has been working as a navigation officer on luxury motor yachts, mostly in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.

However, he recently discovered a passion for woodworking and came to Chippendale to train as a furniture maker to explore his creative side. His goal is to eventually open his own furniture making business in Surrey, where he comes from.

“Working as a ship’s navigation officer is demanding and carries a lot of responsibility, but it doesn’t allow for much creativity,” says Roland.

His beautiful desk and chair, in wych elm and olive ash, was inspired by the shapes of Gothic church arches. The strength and grandeur of the Gothic design is softened by the piece’s gentle curves and chamfered edges.

Andreas Gurtner

Andreas Gurtner, from Vienna, already has a degree in international land and water management from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Through his studies he discovered a passion for beauty and the simplicity of nature and realised that he missed an outlet for his own creativity. This ambition led him to enrol at the Chippendale school.

His half round table in sycamore and yew was inspired by the wild grain of the yew. He combines the natural beauty of the wood with different materials like gold accents that are incorporated in the piece.

Andreas also finds inspiration from past Austrian artists such as Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Gustav Klimt, which is reflected in his designs – using the wood itself to inspire and shape the final design.

“Most designers use wood to make their designs come to life. However, I also like to see things the other way around – using the patinas and grains of the wood to dictate the final design,” he says.

Through his passion for travelling he has learned about many different cultures and, for example, the aesthetics of Asian simplicity. That is why, after graduation, Andreas hopes to work in Asia for a couple of years, and to learn more about different approaches to woodworking.

After that, he wants to return to Vienna and open his own furniture business, taking inspiration again from his native Austrian artists.

Shubham Goel

Shubham Goel is one of two Indian students at the school this year, and who should have no trouble marketing the business he intends to set up in either Mumbai or his home town of New Delhi.

He is a graduate in marketing and advertising from New Delhi University and, prior to studying at the Chippendale school, was an account executive working for one of the world’s leading advertising agencies.

However, he has always wanted to follow a more personally creative career, and to build a business that is his own – a course of thinking that has taken him from India to Scotland.

Shubham’s new business, West End Furnishings, will primarily design and make bespoke furniture, but fusing traditional designs and materials from Asia with influences from the West.

“India is a rapidly developing country with an international outlook. What I would like to do is take the best of contemporary Indian design and give it a slight twist – bringing that international dimension to a domestic market,” he says.

His beautiful writing desk in olive ash and spalted beech provides echoes of that approach, developing a style that bridges countries and continents.

The Art of Windsor Chair Making

The third and final term of our students’ nine-month furniture design course was kick-started with a week of intensive woodworking, learning the art of Windsor chair making under the guidance of Britain’s leading Windsor chair makers, Tom Thackray and his son-in-law Steve.

The making of Windsor chairs involves a whole range of woodworking skills that, once learnt, will be invaluable to our students in their furniture-making careers. First, the seats are shaped using a ‘travisher’ and various degrees of sanding.

The rods at the back of a Windsor chair are known as ‘sticks’ – as opposed to spindles – and are shaped from thick to thin by forcing them through a specialist lathe.

Traditional woodturning skills are used to form and shape the legs.

A Windsor chair is a joy to behold and a pleasure to own. They are chairs that become loved over time and passed down from generation to generation. They make wonderful gifts and, because they can be handcrafted in any size, they can be made for men, women and children – and they can even be built as rocking chairs. Additionally, a whole wealth of design features can be added, including the carving of personal details into the ash wood, making each chair absolutely unique.