Exhibitions and Events

Inspiration

The Sutherland Collection is inspired by place, function and pushing the boundaries of his craft practise.

We love the dramatic landscape and cultural heritage of Sutherland and spent time walking in the North West Scotland Geopark last year.  The landscape is the result of a unique geology that reveals what Robert Macfarlane calls deep-time. The dramatic sandstone island mountains (like Suilven above) have tops of hard weather resistant Cambrian Quartsite which have resisted erosion by glaciers whilst the surrounding sandstone has been eroded away during ice ages. The Torridon sandstone was formed from river sediment one billion years ago when simple life first began. Evidence of that life is found as fossils, in the sandstone.

Other rocks in the area are even older. Lewisian Gneiss rock was formed 3 billion years ago and as the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago these are amongst the oldest rocks on earth. The Gneiss rock started as molten lava which was later thrust deep into the earth where it melted again and metamorphosed into the hard Gneiss. Incredible forces have moved this rock back to the surface where it has resisted the erosion by glaciers which swept away most of the softer rock.

The study of geology in the area has helped understand the formation of the earth’s physical landscape over billions of years. Super-continents and vast mountain ranges form, drift apart and erode away.  Torridon sandstone started south of the equator became mountains higher than the Himalaya’s, then drifted apart into Norway, North America, Ireland and North-West Scotland to be eroded by ice ages.

Trees, animals and people only appeared in North West Scotland in the last 10,000 years. The Vikings appeared in Sutherland around 1,300 years impacting  language, design and culture in the area. We saw evidence of this when when visiting ‘Am Fasgadh’ last year. We were granted privileged access to this remarkable collection, of over 10,000 items relating to highland life between 1700 to 1950’s.  We visited with our friend and furniture historian David Jones, previously lecturer in Scottish vernacular furniture at St Andrew’s university. Angus liked a chair with a parallel back rail, finely spoke shaved spindles and a shaped seat. David knew that the chair came from North West Scotland and the design could be traced back to the Vikings. Other chairs from Sutherland, were very simply made for croft houses, using collected, naturally bent sticks. Other chairs of interest included Bible Chairs with little built in cupboards and shelves. The collection at Am Fasgadh has all sorts of objects used for preparing food (eg milk churns below right), tools for farming, for making textiles and clothing.

How inspiration effects a design is a nebulous thing, but expect to see a monumental chair which evokes a glaciated landscape with island mountains, but also has a comfortable shaped seat, folding shelves and storage.

Materials

The collection is made in local Scottish wood. Vernacular furniture makers in the past used local materials out of necessity but we use it to be sustainable. Thinning our over-crowded woodland improves the woodland, and by using Scottish hardwoods we help create a demand so that each precious tree can continue to lock in it’s carbon even when felled, as it will be milled and prepared for furniture making rather than firewood.

The Sutherland Drinks Cabinet has a lift off tray in oak and laburnum. The laburnum was an ornamental tree in an Aberfeldy garden which was gifted to the workshop after it had to be felled. After many years of drying we have cross cut the branches into laburnum oysters. The contrasting dark heart wood has a lighter edge and sometimes used to provide an attractive surface pattern in fancy furniture of the 19th C. We have added a contemporary twist by laser cutting the oysters into a tessellated pattern, then selected, matched and patched to produce a swirling pattern on both sides of the tray. The handles are bent oak.

The cabinet itself is made using our signature slats and beads method of constructing elliptical cabinets. The slats are characterful pippy oak and the beads and structure are in darker fumed oak. When oak is exposed to ammonia fumes the tannin reacts and makes the wood darker – this is very different to a surface stain.  The handles are turned laburnum wood. This is very attractive but also a little joke as the whole laburnum tree is poisonous if ingested.  The cabinet opens into an unexpectedly light interior with a skeletal framework, glass shelves, mirrors and lights.

In the 19th C a different species of laburnum was available (Laburnum alpinum) and this very dark wood was used in fine furniture making and for bagpipe drones. It was replaced with imported African Blackwoods and now seems impossible to find. If anyone has some Laburnum alpinum that we can use please let us know!

Dr. Mhairi Maxwell, Assistant Curator at V&A Dundee has written a lovely article

Modern Alchemists at Collect 2019

“The makers in the Craft Scotland showcase at Collect 2019 are the alchemists of our time; carving, casting and creating new traditions, ideas of value and material possibilities across all disciplines. This showcase is craft and design at the boundaries and should not be missed!

Drawing on a range of different influences and fusing together very different techniques, all 15 makers represented are working to create striking new forms and materialities which deliberately defy definition, including furniture maker Angus Ross and his super-natural use of folding and steam bending……”

Read the article

Local ash (Fraxinus excelsior) was used for the bench. Angus likes to use ash as it is usually disregarded for fine furniture making – but considered an excellent firewood- hence its name. Ash is considered a plain wood aesthetically but our Scottish wood often includes a deep pinky tone referred to as olive ash. Angus finds ash to be the best wood for steam-bending.

Ash is an important woodland and non-woodland tree with an important ecological niche which is currently threatened by a fungal disease,  “ash die back”, causing the loss of many trees. In a week, when the potential catastrophic loss of insects is being considered, it may be worth a moment to pause and reflect on the complexity of tree habitats.

“Ash has a unique position as it creates a nutrient-rich, rapidly degradable litter …which contributes to the high pH of the soil compared to that typical of other UK tree species. Furthermore, the ash canopy has high light penetration. Such ecological functions create ash-specific assemblages of species, both above- and below-ground, thus contributing to, and enhancing, UK biodiversity.

1,058 species are associated with ash trees: (from smallest to largest numerically): birds, mammals, bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts), fungi, vascular plants, invertebrates and lichens. These species may utilise the ash trees themselves, and/or the surrounding habitat created by ash trees. Out of the 1,058 species, 44 were ‘obligate’ ash-associated species, in that they have only been found on living or dead ash trees. These obligate species include fungi, invertebrates and lichens. Sixty-two further species were highly associated with ash, and include fungi, lichen, bryophyte and invertebrate species. The dependence of at least 106 species on the ash tree and the habitat these trees create, demonstrates the importance of the ash trees’ contribution to UK biodiversity.”

extracted from

Lawrence, R. & Cheffings, C.M. (Editors) 2014. A summary of the impacts of ash dieback on UK biodiversity, including the potential for long-term monitoring and further research on management scenarios. JNCC Report No.501

What this means is that if we lose all ash trees we will lose 44 species and 62 more will be threatened.  Some trees are proving resistant to disease so we are unlikely to lose all ash however they provide a similar niche to elm which was almost been wiped out.  Therefore it is easy to see how insects and other species can be dramatically reduced – almost without most people noticing.

Research is in progress to understand tree diseases and how to best support small mixed woodlands and large scale forestry.  In general the tree environment is improved by reducing over-crowding – this is what we do in our woodland.

Modern forestry with mixed species and mixed age of trees is more likely to increase resilience than our traditional monoculture forestry in the UK.

As Angus is a great admirer of designer Thomas Heatherwick’s design through model making approach, and we were delighted to see him receive an Honorary Bespoke Guildmark for the ‘Friction Table”.  Angus also met Thomas at No 10 earlier this year!

At that time we were explicitly invited into the warm and friendly V&A Dundee “family”  and have felt the relationship like a gentle breeze in our back ever since. We have had the privilege of meeting Kengo Kuma and some of the remarkable people who had a dream, ten years ago, to have an international design museum on the waterfront of Dundee. They have had the tenacity to see that dream become reality.

Angus is a Design Champion for V&A Dundee.

If you plan to visit the museum arrive by train if possible as the station is literally across the road from the museum. There are hotels on the doorstep and it’s a very short walk into the city centre. To find out more visit the V&A Dundee website.

When we made our ash Unstable Stool for the Scottish Design gallery we made a Special Edition (engraved and numbered) of eight. These have sold out but the Unstable Stool can be ordered and we make it in oak or ash.

Click here to read more about the Unstable Stool.