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John Makepiece exhibition
Friday, 31st December 2010 13:01 PM
I recently visited an exibition of Makepieces work, Enhancing the Language of Furniture, at the excellent Harley Gallery in Nottinghamshire The exhibition charts Makepiece’s career from craft teaching in the 50’s to become the “Grand old Man” of British designer furniture makers. I have to say that some of Makepiece’s stuff leaves me cold, especially the organic pieces such as the Liberty table (from 1975) and the Phoenix chair (1988). Some of the other pieces, showing a little more synthesis, are more to my taste. For instance the Mitre chair (1977), the Millenium chair (1990) and the Ripple chest (1993).
However what interested me more than the designs was the insight into Makepiece’s professional development. It is notable how restless he is, he is always looking for the next thing. Early in his career he took the decision to concentrate on design and work with a team of makers rather than spend long hours at the bench. In the sixties he realised the difficulties of marketing hand made pieces at an economical price, he decided to move towards his now iconic sensual design style that is evidently hand made so that he did not have to compete with industrially produced work.
In the seventies he moved to Parnham House in Dorset and set up Parnham College, a school of fine furniture making. A although the college closed in 2000 the current renaissance in British designer making can be attributed to the many fine makers who graduated from Parnham.
Makepiece continued to innovate with the purchase of Hooke Park by the Parnham Trust. Here he collaborated with a number of architects to build innovative buildings using forest thinnings which would otherwise be wasted.
Many of his sensual chair designs depend on his use of steel rods to strengthen joints. This facilitates strong joints in otherwise slender components. He was one of the first to use this technique.
Although he is constantly pushing the boundaries I noticed that although he uses computer aided design he sits with a designer who interacts with the software. I also noticed that the sculptural effect on the interesting Flow chest of drawers (2007) is created using manual carving techniques, surely this would be a good candidate for CNC work .
The current health of the British designer maker movement is in part due to Makepiece’s challenging approach to design and his, acute business sense. This is something we should all consider in our own practice.
The exhibition “Enhancing the Language of Furniture” organised by Devon Guild of Craftsmen will be in Glasgow, London, Surrey and Leeds over the coming year. More information at: //www.johnmakepeacefurnitur httpe.com/john-makepeace-furniture-designer-maker-latest-news.html
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The remarkable Millenium chair shows the jointing of slender components
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The Ripple chest in oak, the scorching highlights the extrordinary quartered grain
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The man himself
Comments…Add yours
Posted by Bob Armstrong on 02/01/11
Hi Chris,
Good to see not everyone is overwhelmed by Makepiece, I like you love the creativity of his work but find some of it quite dull.
I cannot for understand why he cannot seem to create a "trademark" or "signature" for himself, as mentioned he seems to want to move in new dimensions all the time, to his detriment I feel.
I struggle to understand what catagory he would fall in, Maker..no, designer... no, concept man... maybe.
Having said all the above, I admire the man immensely, huge talent (stretched to far), he is an iconic figure of the future if not today.