The Edinburgh Cabinet,RBGE wych elm project

I have made a number of chests of drawers over the past three decades,  all characterized by the sculpting of their handles from the solid of the drawer-fronts. The layout of the drawer handles has taken various forms on the different chests (see the post entitled “Chester draws”  of a year ago) but the idea behind “The Edinburgh Cabinet” is that the carved form represents the iconic Edinburgh skyline seen from the viewpoint where the wych elm itself stood as a living tree in the Botanic Gardens.

Apart from the obvious candidates, from Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags and Calton Hill on the left to Edinburgh Castle and its esplanade on the right, I have tried to capture the feel of the roofscapes of the Old Town, its spires and chimneys, (Auld Reekie), and of the tree canopies of Stockbridge (with St Stephen’s  Church) and the Botanics itself. ( It will be apparent that the representation is more about the impression than any literal depiction). Sadly, due to lack of space, (or motivation?), I have had to omit the magnificent vista that is the St James Centre.

It has become usual to speak of using the timber of a tree as a way of extending the working life of that tree; in the best instances, for centuries. The Edinburgh Cabinet  seeks to go beyond this and explicitly link itself to the source of its material. It imagines the tree, the Botanics Wych Elm, looking out over its environment as it would have done in its maturity. Thence arises the notion of “The Self Unseeing” as an alternative title for the piece.

These are a couple of photos taken by Edinburgh Evening News photographer Ian Georgeson which might have been (but weren’t) used with the feature the paper ran Thursday Oct 22nd; many thanks to Ian for sending me these.

Wych Elm Exhibition opens at Botanics

With the opening of the new John Hope Gateway building at the west (Inverleith Park) entrance to the RBGE, the Wych Elm exhibition is now up and running. Our involvement has been twofold.

Firstly, with the kids of Kaimes School, Sharon Kirby and myself have built an “Acheivement Tree” which is now a permanent installation outside the school library. Photos and description of this form part of the exhibition and it is featured in the beautiful 10 minute video on the whole project made by Circa Media

Secondly, a piece I am calling “The Edinburgh Cabinet” shown here on its first morning in the John Hope Gateway (Angus Ross’s “collector’s chair” is to the left  and the Chris Butler chest he made for Ian Rankin is immediately behind).

and, below, a shot of the 5-drawer front nearing completion in the workshop

The exhibition runs until 28th March 2010 9.30am-7.00pm(9.00am on Saturday & Sunday).

Edinburgh moves to Glasgow

To paraphrase a well known Glaswegian saying, “The only good thing to come out of Edinburgh is the current Scottish Furniture Makers exhibition which transfers from Greyfriars Kirk to Princes Square, Glasgow after this weekend” (not that snappy a paraphrase then?).

More specifically, the exhibition is at GREYFRIAR’S Saturday the 3rd from 10.00 til 6.00 and Sunday the 4th from 2.00pm til 5.00pm when it clsoes its doors for the last time.

It re-opens at PRINCES SQUARE on Tuesday 6th Oct and runs thru, every day until Sunday 18th Oct 10.00 til 6.00.

Since my “Edinburgh Cabinet” is now in the Wych Elm Exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, it has been replaced with (a blast from the past) the swinging cot, an early piece in cherry and utile which has been in use in the family for a couple of decades.

 

 

Doors-Open-Day Weekend

This was a tremendous success.  We were inundated, “stowed out”, (sp?)  with visitors both days and I can only apologize that we were not able to give all of you the attention we would have liked.

Those of you who took photos, please send them as comments to this blog or email them.

Thank you for the “tea and coffee” donations towards my daughter Catherine’s forthcoming voluntary work in India. We collected nearly forty squids. Special thanks to the lady who used to come and sit in Gogar Kirkyard back in the seventies (before my time) just because ” it was a good place to sit”. Come back and see us soon, its still a good place to sit.

It’s all happening at once

We have a busy period starting at the end of September.

First of all,

Edinburgh Doors-Open-Day 2009

The event this year is being held over the weekend of 26^th & 27^th Sept and our building will be open to visitors between 11.00 & 5.00 on the Saturday and noon & 4.00 on the Sunday. As well as the church itself, a listed building, and its graveyard’s interesting inhabitants, the interior provides a fine (and increasingly rare) example of a traditional cabinetmaking workshop; finished pieces and work in progress will be on show. One guy who dropped by recently described it as, “my favourite Edinburgh’s-best–kept-secret”.

Originally linked to Holyrood Abbey, references to Gogar as a religious site date back nearly a thousand years. The present building dates from 1890 (tower and porch added 1901) but incorporates at its S end the remains of a small pre-reformation chapel.  The last church service was held in 1955 and the building has been used as a cabinetmaking workshop specialising in the production of quality furniture in native hardwoods since 1979.

An engraving from 1890 showing the building as it was projected.  There are detailed differences from what was actually built, most notably the pitched roof to the tower.  This never materialized.  Perhaps they ran out of money? (or very possibly energy, since it was largely constructed by the congregation in their spare time).

With RBS having developed the former Gogarburn Hospital across the road as its new global headquarters and the tramline to the airport in the process of wrapping itself round two and a half sides of the graveyard, Gogar Church is the last building left standing in its vicinity. As the Environmental Statement commissioned by TIE (the tramline company) itself puts it (Vol. 1,section 5.6 pp6/7):-

“the long term impacts on it (i.e Gogar Church) are considered significant and adverse”

As I said in my original letter of objection to parliament, this is not made any better by knowing that

”the effects (of the tramline) on listed buildings would be significant only in relation to Gogar church”  (ibid p9).

It is therefore important that Edinburgh be aware of this precious relic, “put under the care of Corstorphine Kirk for all time coming” in 1602 and does everything possible to preserve the amenity of its setting.

Anyway, come and see how we are getting along in these circumstances and then visit the:-

Scottish Furniture Maker’s Annual Exhibition

Immediately after doors open day weekend, we transfer our attention to the annual Scottish Furniture Makers’ exhibition this year being held for one week in Greyfriar’s Kirk Edinburgh (Tuesday 29th Sept to Saturday 3rd Oct) and then transfering to Princes Square,Glasgow (Tuesday 6th Oct to Saturday 11th Oct).  Open daily 10.00am to 6.00pm both venues. More details on the association’s website www.sfma.org.uk

Console table and two chairs which I will be showing in SFMA exhibition.

And finally:-

Wych Elm Project Exhibition, opens 7th October

To complicate matters somewhat, between these latter two venues the long-awaited Wych Elm Project exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens  Edinburgh opens on to the public on the 7th Oct. Along with some two dozen makers who have produced work from the one Wych Elm, I will be showing my “Edinburgh Cabinet”, the  front of which is sculpted to give an impression of the Edinburgh skyline as the tree itself might have looked upon it from the Botanic Gardens in its maturity. The “Acheivement Tree” community project Sharon Kirby and myself did with the kids at Kaimes School will also feature in this exhibition.

This is a sneak preview of the cabinet, its front as yet incomplete, which will be on show at our open days, at the first (Edinburgh) sfma exhibition and thereafter at the Botanics.

My Second Armoire

When I’m asked how my commissions come about, I tend to say less than useful things like “Oh, I dunno, people just come across my work and it takes their fancy”.  The ‘coming across’ of this piece, the second and, very probably, last, armoire of my cabinetmaking career, illustrates the fairly ad hoc, arbitrary, flukey, multi-faceted,….ways in which these things might happen!

I bought a car on Ebay from a guy in Cumbernauld,  a very nice, low mileage, well cared-for classic 900 SAAB.  It transpired he’d only had it a few weeks and probably saw a way to turn it round quickly and make a few (hundred) quid – which was o.k. I’d still got a good sound car for not a lot of money.  Anyway I was contacted by a guy who was the son of the previous, long-term, owner. He had followed the auction on Ebay and was obviously interested to know if it had finished up in good hands. I invited him round to the workshop and hopefully was able to re-assure him on that score.

We got talking about my work and while looking at my portfolio one piece, an armoir in brown oak I had made 20 (?) years ago,  grabbed his attention as it seemed an adaption of it would meet a particular storage and display need in their household.  Of equal importance was that the piece should fulfill its function in an aesthetically satisfying manner. Critically, they had not been able to find anything through the normal furniture acquiring channels that met all their requirements – a bottom-line reason for commissioning a piece.

The predecessor had been in brown oak and the same timber appealed this time round (which led to its own set of problems sourcing the material, see the entry for the Charlotte Chapel lectern below).

Approximate dimensions are H=78″, W=34″ and D=20″.

It was one of my main jobs for 2008 and because of the Simon Scott stuff in fact ran over into Jan of 2009.  I have to thank the clients for their forbearance in that respect.

overview, bottom doors with fielded oak panels, top doors with beveled glass panels

framing and panelling of cabinet back exactly reflects that of the doors

detail of handles on top cabinet doors carved into stiles

Below is a picture of the previous armoire which I guess dates from about 1990

Burr Elm Table with Magazine Shelf

This is an example of an item made to maximize the impact of a particular piece of wood, in this case a stunning slice of burr elm.  Larger holes are patched with small bits of burr and the myriad tiny, irregular holes are filled with so called “cold-cast brass” i.e. brass powder made into a paste with polyester resin which, when set hard, can be cut back and polished.

Simon Scott at Open Eye Gallery

I had a hectic few weeks up to and over Christmas/New Year working on mounts for some of the pieces in the Simon Scott exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery.  I will limit myself to saying that I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for when I was approached by Simon and his arch-collaborator Victor Albrow.

The exhibition combines the beautiful, the bizarre and the esoteric with wit and an unusual degree of accessability thanks to Simon’s brief essays which accompany each piece.  Victor Albrow’s immaculate photographs of pieces are themselves part of the exhibition.

I will add a couple of photos, for which thanks to Jane Scott ( they are  NOT Victor’s exhibition photos). They just happen to include mounts by myself, but I would urge everyone to grab the opportunity to see the whole thing for themselves.

Open Eye Gallery is at 34, Abercrombie Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE until the 21st of Jan.   tel 0131 557 1020

Mon to Fri 10.00am to 6.00pm

Saturdays  10.00am to 4.00pm

www.openeyegallery.co.uk

politics-of-dancing (19th century Tailor's scissors on a burr-elm plinth)

home of the brave, land of the free? (miners' linnet cages on a yew-tree wall mount)

everything falls apart, sooner or later ( an accidently broken fossil on a burr-elm wall mount)

 

Jeff the Cat

I have caused offence in certain quarters by promoting our new workshop member, Eddy the Bouvier, and ommiting to mention the pre-existent, feline occupant Jeff (or is that “Geoff”?). For the past 3 years he has been an important part of our workshop Pest-Control-Strategy. In fact, probably the whole of it.  Important because mice eat the plastic sheathing on the 3-phase electrics of the workshop with disastrous and expensive consequences, as we have found to our cost (as did the mice, presumably).

He is pictured here relaxing on a weekend off at home in his alernative, town-centre residence.

Eddy, now 3 months,  persists in trying to get him to play but continues to be met with disdain.  Here is the new boy today in a high wind on Blackford Hill.

Charlotte Chapel Bicentenary Lectern

As part of their bicentenary celebrations, Charlotte Chapel in Rose street, Edinburgh commissioned the design and build of a new lectern.  I had recently acquired, after much scouring of suppliers (most of whom turned out to be non-suppliers e.g. “haven’t seen any for years” “that’d cost you but I haven’t got any anyway”,”no idea”, “I’m pretty much retired nowadays”), a load of really nice brown oak to be used for the armoire which I am now currently working on.

Brown oak is not a species as such but is oak which, as a living tree, has hosted the beaf-steak fungus. The effect is, over the course of years (decades?, centuries?), to turn the heartwood of the tree a rich brown in colour – rare and much sought after. It was decided, in the context of the chapel interior that this would be a most suitable material with which to do the job.

A post-and-panel construction was agreed.  The main panel incorporates a relief-carved cross.  For stability in use the whole front inclines backwards,( i.e. towards the reader), by 2 degrees. The incised inscription is by the Edinburgh-based lettercarver Roger Hall.

Just to show not everything is an end-product, below is a picture of the piece in the making, at the stage of being a skeletal framework

…the structure of the piece is thus made very apparent. Jointing is mortice and tenon. The grooves in the posts to accept the floating panels can be seen.