Orkney Chair

"Traditionally a craftsman was trained in a material and was the master of it. The modern craftsman is still the true essence of this, with an inherent understanding of materials, process and function, but more is required of him, he needs the ability to see the whole picture, his holistic approach will have the ability to communicate and reinterpret more than just process, from heritage to context, from education to environment, from preservation to reinvention, the whole picture needs to be described within his work, using the pallet of techniques within his specialism he rebrands his process for a contemporary audience to ensure it survival and to inspire the modern audience"

The Orkney Chair Project was an opportunity to put this into practice when in December 2012 I was invited to design a chair for the 'New Crafts Man' and I teamed up with a traditional Orkney chair maker Kevin Gauld and visited him to execute a modern interpretation of the Orkney chair. My design merged the thinking and knowledge gained from the Bodging project and the traditions of the Windsor chair, combining it with the unique straw work of the Orkney isles.