Guild Mark for Dorchester Abbey Choir Stalls

This week we heard the good news that the Dorchester Abbey choir stalls have been awarded the prestigious, bespoke Guild Mark by the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers, which represents Britain’s Furniture Industry. The award is given by a nine-person jury of the country’s top designers and craftsmen and is judged on the basis of excellence in design, materials, craftsmanship and function.

As can be seen from the images we also installed the clergy seating to complement the choir stalls this week.

Philip with the choir stalls and one of the clergy chairs and desks

One of the clergy seats and desks in front of the choirs stalls.

James actually working on the clergy desk: cutting out the cross in the side panel

Going Wild

It is not often I get “permission” from a client to take a design further than before. A young couple (about the same age as my children!) commissioned a Pondlife coffee table. They wanted the design to be as wild and Pondlife-like as possible. It’s quite large at about 150 x 120 cm and has a glass top cut into an “organic” shape – here is the final product! 

Fred Baier, The Right Angle

I was lucky to be able to fit in a trip to Farnham in the first week of the year before Fred Baier’s exhibition at The Crafts Study Centre museum at the University for Creative Arts finished.

Fred Baier is an artist-craftsman who goes to places furniture designer-makers, like myself, have never been to or have even never imagined! The work is provocative and challenging, yet familiar. He combines very recognisable elemental shapes (cones, torus, cubes, etc) with bold-coloured woods and highly lacquered surfaces. His forms are sculptural and bold, yet highly refined and functional.

His work contrasts dramatically with the likes of me who remain wedded to the Arts & Crafts philosophy (we produce furniture that looks like furniture!). Yet, despite the difference it was a humbling experience to see his work first hand (images are a crude substitute by comparison). It wasn’t just beautifully made, imaginatively adventurous and visually stunning, it was also mathematically accomplished, superbly engineered and technically sophisticated. James Willis, my assistant, called Fred an “inventor” and he does have the persona of a wacky genius! -;)