Award winning Anselm Fraser Furniture, which runs alongside the Chippendale International School of Furniture, completed a bespoke kitchen installation for a client just in time for Christmas. The furniture design and furniture restoration business has created and installed more than 80 bespoke kitchens over the years.
However, this installation was different…
Chippendale School of Furniture’s Anselm Fraser fuses big sky thinking with commercial savvy
Main part of a feature published in Good Woodworking in Growth Rings in October 2011. Reproduced with thanks. Words: Darren Loucaides. Photos: Dave Roberts.
As mist settles on the hills surrounding this secluded spot in Gifford, 25 miles east of Edinburgh, it feels like we’ve happened upon a deserted country house. Chippendale International School of Furniture is out for summer, and stalking around its exhibition hall, quiet but for our footfall thundering across the rugged floorboards, the atmosphere is eerie. Perhaps we’re hearing distant echoes, glimpses of movement just beyond our vision – hints of the life that usually fills the place.
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.
An interview with Chippendale Furniture alumni, Tara McIntosh, who now runs her business, Twiggd, from the Chippendale Incubator 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!
