It is often so obvious of course it is easy to forget the magic of wood.
Wood of course grows – in trees!
Yes we of course all know this, however, sometimes it is really beneficial to feel or realize the connection of this.
That wonderful stuff that grows all around us. And on a spring day such as today an extra sparkle of magic.

Selecting cherry wood for the next set of chairs near Bore Place, W. Kent with John Waller.

Back at the workshop the start of the journey from trees to chairs. The 1st stage – cleaving the runs or billets for the legs. Cleft with the grain to maintain the full strength of the wood, these sections will be shaped then steam bent to a similar curve as to the example piece on top to form the front leg components of these chairs – Hancocks Nimm type

Experience hammerhead at 21st Century II – Arts & Crafts Legacy.
Exhibition runs till 25th April, Islington, London

marks&lines2

Landscape does not exist in isolation, it is of course part of the cultural & environmental climate that shapes it. We envision it as we move through it. Change is naturally inevitable.

A picture – ‘landscape in the storm of discontent’

ideas – brewing.

Following images begin to give an idea to what the Insictor form is all about and the layering of elemental keys.
The fluid transitions rise and fall, escarpment, swathe and hollow.
Traveling at speed below the edge line of the South Down.
Whilst at the same time transcending scales – animated in motion, walking, crawling at perhaps no more than 6 mm high.

It is a complex project and a long way still to go as yet.
The thread bars that lock the elements onto the stainless steel frame. Eventually these will be shortened and capped.
Middle section profiling next.

Now the main structure and assembly is well underway, its time to begin looking at the style, line weights and fluid transitions of the components.
Its quite a task. The main components are quite large and being totally irregular in form, clamping and gripping takes time to set up to work on each of the component pieces.
The images show one of the lower leg arrangements taking shape.
As each cut progresses periodic re-assembly is required in order to evaluate the form in its entirety.
Insictor is an asymmetric piece, however it is still imperative that the overall form appears reflectively balanced and that each line weight movement flows gracefully into the next.

Insictor structure begins to take shape – strung together on a stainless steel tube sub frame assembly.
At this stage nearly all legs have been initially fitted to the body structure although the compound curve gap set joints previously mentioned are still to be fully formed.

These images give a first glimpse to the spatial presence of the piece and you can perhaps begin to get a sense of what this work is all about.

And here are a couple of sneak glimpses of the new hammerhead chair. (see earlier posts)
You will be able to experience this piece soon at the end of March – 21st Century Furniture – The Arts & Crafts Legacy 2 – exhibition.
At the Millinery Works, Islington, London

For those unable to attend – full set of images will be published April.

Following images show work underway on the structure of the Insictor bench form.

Primarily this is the start of the centre section.
Now joined it will be leveled before commencement of the front and back section assemblies. You can perhaps begin to see how the style of the piece is being developed with the organic fluid and sinuous form.
The legs are joined to the body sections with a compound curve 4 mm gap set joint with a 3 point stainless steel tube assembly.

And now for something completely different!

This is the start of ‘Insictor’

This is a sculptural interior bench form in ash and stainless steel at around 3.5 m width.
Finished look will be polished bleached ash.

Surprisingly it is not dissimilar to the creation of a more traditional woven seat frame chair, of which have previously made many with origins in the green wood crafts and associated chair making, ‘bodging with the pole-lathe’ (turning of chair components with self powered lathe).
Drilling the large 38mm dia sockets with brace and bit for the stainless steel frame being very similar to the line up for drilling of chair rungs.

Anyhow, this bench certainly will not look like a traditional frame chair.
There is a long way to go with project – you will see it develop in these pages over next few months.

Also soon to start turning this amazing board of burred chestnut into a really fabulous coffee table, more on that soon too.

New chair – Hammerhead – structure and form work now complete.

I was going to post a couple of images showing the form taking shape of the new Hammerhead chair. (indeed I did for 10 minutes)
However, I have decided that as this form is so different, will wait until the new form is completed for that final one take,
That one look of complete surprise!

no images heres!

There is still much work still to do on this piece to get it just right, however the image below gives a good idea to the stance and spatial presence of this exciting new piece.
And, yes, it is really comfortable.

no image here either!