LUMBER PARTY SEE YA,
LUMBER PARTY SEE YA, CERAMICS. GOODBYE, GLASS. SO LONG, STEEL... WOOD IS BACK, AND HOW. WE MEET THREE INNOVATIVE BRITISH WOODWORKERS TO LEARN WHY THIS VENERABLE MATERIAL IS TAKING CENTRE STAGE AGAIN STORY: Dan Stevens 32 THE JAGUAR
Tom Raffield’s signature steam-bent wood creates swooping forms in furniture, lighting, even a whole house We don’t really have a tradition of wood as art in the UK,” says Eleanor Lakelin, as she shows me round her London workshop. Her success as a sculptor in wood, creating forms that suggest familiarity but are captivatingly otherwordly, is proof that this is changing. Lakelin’s work elevates the horse chestnut burrs she favours as material of choice from firewood to artwork. “What I do is relatively new,” she says. “And the value of wood is changing.” Indeed, the main buyers of her work are collectors, galleries and museums. Lakelin is part of a recent movement that considers wood to be as valuable as ceramics, glass, silver or any other material that we sculpt, cut, shape and mould as art. Fellow woodworker Sebastian Cox’s workshop is not far from Lakelin’s in London. At the centre of his enterprise is the timber used to create his delicate, elegant furniture. His combination of English hardwoods, traditional techniques and an aesthetic that reflects the qualities of each species of timber has won awards. But it’s his desire to find new ways of using the material that has set him apart. Cox started making furniture and objects from a material that’s otherwise used for hedging and gardens – coppiced hazel: long straight rods from young trees that are cut back to ground level. Coppicing is an ancient woodland PHOTOS: KIRSTIN PRISK, ALUN CALLENDER