I once heard John Makepeace say (I recall at the Irish 'Create' event where we were both invited speakers) that a furniture maker would not make a good furniture critic. Perhaps too close to the scene of the crime?
The last acknowledged critic of the post 1970s Furniture Craft Revolution was a guy called Peter Dormer: an academic and a potter and very much part of the Royal College of Art/Crafts magazine mafia! Rumour was he disliked furniture! But he understood the nature of skill and so as a maker himself he clearly ticked that box as a critic!
The reader will note I am quite outspoken in this traditionally well-mannered field and forgive my lack of modesty - a cardinal sin amongst makers (who often are far from modest in reality, so let's please be truthful here) but my question is who else, besides moi has documented the British furniture movement of the past half century and against a historical backcloth - and with the advantage of giving an inside story?! Yes, and even using a cheap domestic VHS camcorder in the early days as this clip of my very first craft documentary in 1986 shows:
So, putting my money where my mouth is, in 1988, using 20 grand from the proceeds of a house sale, I invested in video film making equipment. I applied to six film schools and was turned down (too old) by all of them and so I taught myself film making and set up Thinking Hand Video, sharing the wealth of ideas of the work and the makers behind it, as a reaction to silent somewhat exclusive furniture galleries where there was just a name and price tag for punters to refer to.
Ironically it was John Makepeace who chaired an award committee (in that year) when I applied for a £1,000 grant to continue making my furniture documentaries. I showed the committee an extract from 'Five Ways to fashion wood' on a tiny 6'' video monitor.
The 20 minte documentary had won me The Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers 'Ambrose Heal Award'.
Now this will shock the reader but is relevant to the topic of 'who makes a worthy furniture critic?' When I was introduced to John Makepeace at the commence of my interview I recall saying 'yes I have much admired John's work over the years' to which I heard one of the other panel members say 'creep'. This knocked me off my footing momentarily but I let the comment pass until I arrived back home and wrote to the secretary of the awards committee. I recall writing 'irrespective of the outcome of my application for the award I would like to make it clear that whilst I truly admire John Makepeace as an innovator I have written articles eg. 'The Golden Age of Contemporary Craftsmanship' for Woodworking International magazine (later called Furniture & Cabinetmaking magazine) boldly criticising his designs and probably one of the very few to do so'.
To my surprise the letters crossed in the post as I received the £1,000 award! I later received a profound apology from an embarassed committee member which I accepted as we are all adults and should be free to speak our minds even if carelessly. A far cry from what is now happening in our society.
To write about the thing one is passionate about and to spend probably thousands of hours filming, editing and making stage props etcectera etcetera to help educate a largely ignorant public is amongst other things a huge therapy for me. It absorbs me and relieves me of the clinical depression I have suffered all my life. If my critical videos were not any good nobody would watch them. To date my Furniture today 3 video that I re-named 'The Contemporary Furniture Revolution' has received over 100,000 views; respectable numbers considering the nich market and massive competition on YouTube to get noticed:
Following Peter Dormer, a more passionate Peta Levi wrote for the Telegraph. This boosted confidence in a broader buying public for our world leading designer maker revolution to earn some respect through informed opinion that gardening and wine appreciation already enjoyed, although it never quite reached mass audiences until recently and then has been turned into a game format.
The furniture craft movement (referred to as British Studo Furniture in the 90s) has always been tilted towards elitism and exlusivity by many practising it. I am probably an exception in that I sold my furniture at slightly above Habitat prices and I produced furniture (eg my rocking chairs) in small numbers when 'batch' was a dirty word in craft circles. A piece of furniture had to be a one-off which at best is an expensive prototype as furniture, especially chairs usually take a few modifications to evolve into a worthy product!
I was inspired to write this post having just watched and shared a documentary on the Ukraine conflict called 'A historian of the future' and I naturally thoughtof myself. Maybe I should add this to my CV - furniture designer maker and critic. No, we don't think so!
But in an age when everybody's story and opinion is becoming excessive confusing noise the game has changed and is the double edged blade called democracy.
I am staggered at how ignorant and disinterested so many people still are about furniture culture and tradition. It took me four years to persuade the University of Bath Adult learning people to allow me to give a lecture called 'Furniture Today'. This was before the turn of the Millennium and the UK had its head buried in the past in its fear of the future. Of course attitudes changed in the first decade of the 21st century.
From this lecture I gave other lectures around the country and made DVDs of Furniture Today parts One, Two and Three, the last one being in 2013 when Professor Tony James (an aquaintance from playing badminton at the university) kindly gave me access to the main lecture theatre where I premiered Furniture Today 3 to an invited audience.
Amongst the guests were Fred Baier and Johhny Hawkes. Fred is arguably the only Fine Art British furniture maker to appear in global books on innovative furniture design and anyone buying his early work will be sitting pretty. They call em 'early adopters' and they should be knighted for their bravery. Less can be said of the present king who witnessed a Royal Family viewing of ten pieces of British work (he sat on one of my rocking chairs chosen) and didn't commission a single piece! Royal patronage alive and kicking?!
In the same decade (1980s) When BBC television broadcast a certain antiques specialist called Arthur Negus, I phoned them up in fury when I heard him announce that no modern craftsman came anywhere near the quality of work of our 18th century ancestors. I told them I could introduce them to at least a dozen workshops in Britain demonstrating that modern work is better than the past.
I guess history will judge whether this simple carpenter who never went to university is a worthy critic of the furniture movement which became known as 'British Studio furniture'. I was certainly there at the scene of the crime exhibiting my furniture alongside the main suspects!
It is not just a question of expressing an opinion for the sake of it and because social media tells us our opinions are important, but having something to say that hasn't been said before that actually adds to and is based on factual knowledge.
It was my privilige and good fortune to have met some of the prominent makers and seen their work from the viewpoint of a fellow creator and as a writer.
My qualifications as a craft journalist:
I studied for the Membership of the College of Craft Education (MCCED) in 1971 winning the Vivian Williams book prize for the highest marks in the country for the written examinations. It was a correspondence course under The Institute of Craft education and carried degree status (Handicraft teacher training was not a degree course at the time). The course cover 36 essays on the principles of craft education and a social and economic history of Britain that covered architecture and furniture. The qualification was held by most woodworking authors in the 1960s. I also gained a distinction at the UK's former Handicraft Teacher Training Colle - Shoreditch College, after gaining A grade at GCE A Level Woodwork at Abbotsholme school. This was my introduction to furniture history.
