Adrian McCurdy’s lifelong connection with wood has shaped a unique practice where fine art and craftsmanship merge. Each piece is an exploration of form, texture, and process—guided as much by the material itself as by the maker’s hand.
From his Scottish Borders workshop, Adrian embraces the raw authenticity of riven wood, using hand tools to release the natural shapes hidden within each log. His designs emerge gradually, responding to the wood’s grain, character, and history—sometimes years after a log is first selected. Whether working with storm-felled trees or quartered oak, his approach is deeply mindful of traditional techniques.
The flow of oak grain is a constant feature in his solo exhibition for March 2025 – Flow. Keep on reading to find out much more about Adrian McCurdy. Enjoy a series of short films throughout this blog, where Adrian shares many of his wood working processes.
When I first arrived in the Scottish Borders, it already felt somewhat like home. Through an art college friendship with Tim Stead, I quickly met incoming residents who had moved to the Borders to practice their crafts. I took this lifestyle as normal without realising it mirrored the early days of my upbringing in the rural countryside of Berkshire.
My passion for furniture-making traces back to Stanley Davis’s workshop near Windermere, where my father, inspired by the Arts and Crafts philosophy of handmade craftsmanship, became a dedicated student. His deep enthusiasm for woodworking never faded and naturally influenced my brothers and I. While I’ve always admired the precision of hand-cut dovetail joints, it all felt too refined for me. Instead, I pursued Fine Art at Trent Polytechnic, where I met Tim Stead. To this day, I’ve never cut a dovetail joint—and I don’t believe Tim did either.
I had gathered considerable knowledge from my brother’s oak timber-framing company, particularly in understanding the structural strengths of oak and working with a diverse range of hand tools. I applied these insights to furniture-making, drawing inspiration from techniques used 500 years ago—an era when simple tools achieved remarkable craftsmanship. However, with limited historical examples to study—mostly a few chests and almost no seating—I had to rely on trial and error. As projects grew beyond stool legs to larger components like seats, the importance of wood selection and technique became even more critical. With no clear precedent for this craft, my learning has been entirely self-guided.
Cleft Chairs
Tim Stead inspired the confidence in me to make furniture with an alternative approach to joining wood together - it just needs to be strong! Without owning machinery, I decided to use pegs and wedges, a little bit of glue and followed my experience-based instinct. Since those early commissions, I've sought to develop the possibilities of making furniture from wood shapes riven (not sawn) into planks.
It's a slow way of working despite the simple premise of riven conversion. It demands patience and a mindful focus - each piece will be different. There's an unpredictability of outcome and most of the decisions are made during the long making process. You wouldn't do this if you didn't love the whole process.
Riven Chests
Adrian McCurdy has worked with wood since an early age. With a background in Fine Art, Adrian’s career moved first from painting to a development of unique wood-skills in furniture and more recently carved panels. From his workshop in the Scottish Borders, Adrian produces furniture using quality local timber and craft techniques both long established and contemporary, often working with storm damaged wood felled by local saw-mills.
Carved Wall Panels
For Adrian’s carved wall panels, throwing stones into a local pond progressed to using props, creating chalk drawings and making card models to photograph. These photographic recordings were scaled and mapped out onto wood panels that are then carved, experimenting with patterns and ambiguities in rippled water.
Inspired by local rivers and ponds, the natural patterns of wood grain take on a pictorial quality.
A panel might begin with a simple sketch and a card model, but shaping the contours is achieved meticulously by a gradual removal of waste wood. Machines are used only for roughing out the design. Final shaping is done by hand-tools and eventually sanded to a smooth finish… only then does the grain begin to show clearly.
