September events
Perthshire Open Studios 31st August - 8th September
and
Ash Rise in Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 13th September 2024 - 12th January 2025.
Angus making Clova Chair for Ash Rise exhibition
Our workshop will be open from 31st August - 8th September (10AM - 4PM) for Perthshire Open Studios.
You will have an opportunity to talk to our furniture makers and see furniture being made in our cabinet-shop upstairs and there will examples of finished work in our small showroom downstairs.
We will have brochures with the list of artists who have their studios open and it is a brilliant time to travel around Perthshire.
See a list of artists on the POS website here.
Stu working on tambour sideboard (image by James T Millar).
Mike working on a backgammon table (image by James T Millar).
Ash Rise is a project organised by Scottish Furniture Makers Association in partnership with the Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers, supported by Creative Scotland and Scottish Forestry Commission. Ash Rise involves a touring exhibition of furniture and art responding to the beauty and potential of ash trees and their timber, and the problem of ash dieback disease which is currently devastating our native ash trees.
Ash Rise Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in the John Hope Gateway Gallery 13th September 2024 - 12th January 2025
We were first alerted to the problem of ash dieback disease over a decade ago, by native woodland forester and academic Rick Worrell who is part of the collective who own our bluebell woodland. He was commissioned to write a paper for the Scottish Government on ash dieback in 2013, and he was one of the first to record ash dieback in Scotland when he noticed it affecting ash sapling in our bluebell wood.
Angus first responded to ash dieback in his designs in 2016 when he designed the Resilience Bench for the After the Storm exhibition at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The Resilience Bench was later exhibited at the first London Craft Fair and was bought by the RBGE for Inverleith House where it remains on display. It was featured in the Financial Times in 2019.
Resilience Bench (2016) in Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh made in steam-bent olive ash frame and wind-blown oak seat.
The wood for the oak seat was sourced from a blown down tree in the garden after Storm Andrea (2012). The wood was quite ‘scruffy’ and Angus decided to ebonize it with scorching - known in Japan as Shou Sugi Ban. This process hardens the wood and makes it more resilient. This dark oak was combined with a lovely olive ash as this was the beginning of Ash Dieback. We wanted to bring attention to the importance of caring for our native trees and managing for future health and resilience to storms and disease. This includes managing woodland to bring in light, support regeneration and improve bio-diversity.
Angus making ash Clova Chair in 2024.
For Ash Rise Angus has made a pair of Clova Chairs. They have been a design exercise in paring back the number of components to achieve a comfortable carver chair in just four components.
Each Clova Chair has two dovetail joints, three legs, four components and five steambends and uses timber extremely efficiently.
One section of ash has been sliced and bent to flow in two directions like a fork in a river. This component forms the back-rest and the back leg of the tripod chair plus the stretcher that supports the seat. Another flowing double bend supports the back-rest and forms the arm-rests and the front legs. The seat is curved for comfort and all components are traditionally jointed for strength and beauty. There is a large angled dovetail joint at the back of the seat which joins into the backrest.
There has also been a feature film made about using timber in Scotland and the Ash Rise project. We are delighted that the workshop and woodland are featured and there will be more about this coming soon.