In a recent posting, I referred to 'digitised cabriole legs' in an aside to infer the thin line twist ironic post modern self reference and the limits of trawling the past for ideas. I had in mind the work of Ralph Ball who had work in the 1998 Design Yearbook including a table of stacked layers divided by cabriole legs laid on their sides. A bog reader mentioned in conversation Gareth Neals table made using a sliding table saw where, stood at the correct angle a silhouette of a cabriole leg is clear yet rendered invisible from other viewpoints. A far cleverer detail. This got me thinking back to Fred Baiers studio 1999.
I was recovering from a breakdown and a year spent lecturing at UCE, University of Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury college. I'd come out of college on a high. My work had been in a few magazines and I had exhibited some good work. From this a flurry of lecturing opportunities came my way. Though I enjoyed the visiting lectures up and down the country the daily grind was not for me.
My girlfriend of the time was working at Neil Wilkin glass which at the time was probably the best hot glass studio in the country. Based in Frome they made work for artists such as Peter Bremens, Floris Van Den Bruck, Winnnie Tasamaker and others. The makers there have since gone on to be respected glass artists in their own right, Sonja Klingler, KT Yun, Steve Frey. At the time seeing them work was amongst the best things I had seen. The choreography and interaction with a fluid material is in contrast to the engineering approach of furniture making. They are very different disciplines.
Looking for a job I drove over to Pewsey where Gareth Neal was renting bench space from Fred Baier. Gareth was one of my best mates from college. Three years at High Wycombe had taken us from quite different backgrounds to sharing a commitment to making great furniture.
After looking round the workshop we went for a pint. Fred had been a hero of mine for years. It was his work in all it's fantastic glory that made me decide to stick with furniture. My original interest was art, joinery came second as a route to common values. Fred's work seemed to prove that creativity and greater values could share the sameb space. I asked if I could use his workshop to finish off a tabletop and make some shutters. Somewhere while doing this he asked me if I'd help him make some things. Bar a few lecturing slots at Parnham and Kramer in Leeds I had no work so things slotted in to place. I hoped to find time to make some of my own ideas but over the next couple of years I became engrossed in Fred's world.
I have not met anyone quite like Fred. Alongside him other makers can appear contrived. His work is out their on it's own baring little in common with trends that have come and gone. If you didn't know him I am not sure where you would imagine his work to fit in. There is a slight reference to pop art but essentially he is not of the London design world nor of the fine woodwork world though he is respected by both. When I met him his profile may have dropped from public attention a little but he continued his creative journey, making and thinking up new things everyday. Since then he has had a renaissance in terms of column space with recent high profile exhibitions. The point I am trying to make is though I think he does enjoy attention for his work he would be doing it regardless of the whims of the design media.
By 1999, as an up and coming designer association with the designer maker movement of the 70s and 80s did not stand in your favour. As with all fashion it takes a few years out of the limelight before retrospective analysis trumps embarrassment of yesterday's threads. Alongside me and Gareth was Brian Moxom who made traditional well made furniture and Rachel Hutchinson.
Rachel was going through an intense period of creative development. She had singlehanded created a course at Swindon college to fill a roll that was becoming prevalent at the time. Craft design for industry. Crafts people were beginning to abandon the high craft one off and tread a new path as a prototype designer who would take there idea to industrial workshops where batches would be created. Much like the Italian design model. Tom Dixon and Ron Arad were now established and had abandoned their earlier creative salvage approach. arad was now chief of furniture at the RCA, a course now linked up with architecture and disconnected from applied arts. This separation has had repercussions for the furniture world and is the bug disconnect from the designer craftsman days. Now designers, even those from craft backgrounds sought to dis associate themselves from the making process.
Around this time BBC 2 ran a series on the RCA. I saw a friend from my youth on the telly so rang up. Soom I got a call back and was reunited with David Fryer, an artist who spent a while on this course. Spending time at the college it was clear to see the direction the course had gone in. Whether it is more accurate to view David Pyes tenure as professor of furniture, the period that launched such ilumini as Fred, Richard La Trobe Bateman and Rupert Williamson as a peculiar window of craft revival or to see this as the end of something far longer I can not say. Whatever, by this time all lecturers with craft credentials had been replaced by designers more relevant to industry.
Rachel was smart to see how things were going. Her course reflected this. Her work too was taking off. Having worked for David Colwell her chair designs were crafted objects with a view towards mass production. Flexed plywood formed accurate lumber support. Working with industrial rubber companies she came up with a sofa that she launched at the 100% design show at Earls Court. I helped with the rush to finish work and set up her well recieved show. Out of us all her work was aware of the millennial spotlight. Her furniture would have sat easily alongside stuff at the Jerwood show that was the design event of that time.
Gareth had been working for Rupert Williamson and brought a lot of that attention to detail to the workshop. His Capilliary table, originally made in our last year at college had spawned a series of pieces. I always thought of them as science fiction, organic robots from other planets. Fred may have built the space ship but it was Gareth who strode out in to those alien worlds, trapped their wildlife and unleashed on an unsuspecting public. His tendril table, a small circular topped side table with stainless steel organic legs dangling like a machined jellyfish was pur jewellery. At times he abandoned all care for function in favour of appearance. Sotherbies had a show whilst I was at college featuring the best of the designer makers left in vogue by the fashion change. Janis Blackburn curated another and Gareth produced a blinder for this. His Chaology table stole the show. A madness of insectoid robot limbs supported a laminated back walnut belly. There was competition between Rachel and Gareth but this led to some great work.
I didn't have time or confidence to compete. I found the whole exhibition thing unsettling. I was never under the illusion my work was at fault I just never had the other skills to get on in that world. I' m happier in the workshop than the gallery. Nevertheless I w asked to make some pieces for a show at Birmingham Art Gallery. I created a brick table with a staircase running thriugh it's middle. A miniature chest of drawers with hundreds of CNC turned stainless spikes piercing it's flesh. I sold everything.
I can't remember exactly who did and didn't apply for the Jerwood. I couldn't see any of us getting in . None of us were out and putting it about in London. It is virtually impossible to launch an assault on that world from the provinces. Some manage fur it takes commitment and not a little luck.
The Jerwood Prize only comes round once a year and disciplines take turns to be in focus,one year g,as, one year ceramics and so on. 1999 was to be the year of furniture. I was aware that the idea of designer craftsmen was well out and that prototyping for industry was in but further than that I had little idea.
When the short list was revealed it was clear how our of touch we were. Some of the names I hadn't even heard. Now they are all well known. Before I discuss them I ought to mention Ralph Ball. Whether he applied I don't know, perhaps not, perhaps he was still in America. Whatever the reason, to me his work was what optimised the times mor than any other. It has also been the template for much of the furniture design that followed. His use of reappropriated symbols and their reuse, out of context has become a staple of the day. His use of clutches of household lightbulbs to make a light. The stack of cabriole legs, making reference to furniture history Fromans different angle, literally showed post modernity in an accurate dialogue parallel to what was happening in fine art. The Gassion for YBAs art was still in the air and their take up of the Duchamp ready made was evident in Balls work. Just checking now on google images I see a hammer, peppered with nails ans a tennon saw, sawn in half. These images capture Ball and the times more than any other furniture designer of the millennial aftermath.
Fred has always looked to the future. Essentially a modernist the ironic self referencing of this post modernist era must have appeared bland to him. It has taken a further decade to see his ideas meet the zietghiest again. Many of his students from his time as lecturer at the royal college were in this show though. Mary Little made chairs that had names and personslities. Using cloth she dressed her chairs much like people do to present an image of themselves to the world.
Jim Partridge had connections to the woodworkers though his approach to the material bore little to the cabinet making mastery of the Makepeace era. Vast forms of raw cut oak were blow torched black. A technique taken up by many others. Based in North Shropshire his work seemed akin to Andy Goldsworthy, that artist for people who don't like art. His coffee table books were the middle class equivalent to the Jamie Iliver cookbook today. Partridge brought some of this rawness in to the london living rooms.
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