Wee Chair, 2021

<p>Angus Richardson is an Edinburgh based furniture maker. Having a background in seating restoration, at the end of 2012 he set off to acquire the skills needed to make fine furniture which took him to places of learning from Norfolk to Gloucestershire and from from West Sussex to British Columbia. The journey has allowed consideration of which materials he prefers to use and how to apply them in a fresh way. Working with the wood, he delights in emphasising the grain, highlighting unusual aspects and composing and orienting component parts to lend harmony to the pieces he makes.</p> <p>‘Vidar’s Chair is a design by Vidar Malmsten, son of renowned Swedish furniture designer Carl Malmsten. Much of the design work took place in the workshop of James Krenov who had become a good friend during the latter’s period working in Sweden. The making of a copy (from drawings to finished pieces) formed the third program at Inside Passage School of Fine Cabinetmaking, in British Columbia, onto which I was fortunate enough to enrol in the summer of 2015. The heart of the teaching at IPSFC is very much based on the philosophy and the books of James Krenov, under whom the school’s principal had studied for four years. The two established a strong relationship of mutual respect and understanding. The drawings and techniques of the making of this design is very the result of that relationship. On my return to Edinburgh, I resolved to make a similar chair, unsupervised, in my own workshop. I was fortunate to be able to purchase a large board of Scottish oak from a local sawmill and, on getting it into the workshop, looking at it, placing templates on it and examining the direction of the grain for a few days, I determined that it would be possible to make a pair. The making process was not quick owing as much to the increasing complexity of the joints as construction progresses, as to finding my way with the project. This pair of chairs that is the result of that journey.’ – Angus Richardson, 2021</p>