As part of our commitment to nurturing the designers and makers of the future we are hosting, in collaboration with the Furniture Makers’ Company, our second New Makers’ Conference on 2 June at Wells Museum in Somerset. We are bringing together experienced furniture designers and makers with those who are just starting out, focusing on how new enterprises start and grow, exploring routes from training into business, and how to achieve results with effective marketing, exhibiting, and retailing. The event has completely sold out which we think proves the appetite for this kind of support and opportunity to network. Our thanks go to the fantastic line up of speakers we have in store. We take this opportunity to offer a bit of background on each.
The speakers
As the founder, and CEO of Artichoke, Bruce Hodgson leads the Artichoke team.
Bruce founded Artichoke nearly 30 years ago after studying at the London School of Furniture. He remains the creative force behind the company, overseeing the direction of every project we design. A highly experienced kitchen and furniture designer, interior architect, cabinet maker and fitter, Bruce takes a keen interest in the domestic layouts of country and town houses and in how their architecture can be manipulated to improve how rooms function for Artichoke clients. Bruce is particularly interested in the joinery designs of Sir Edwin Lutyens as well as Edwardian and Georgian joinery detail. In 2018, Bruce was elected as a member of The Carpenters’ Company, a City of London Livery Company, set up in 1477 to safeguard the welfare of those working in the profession. Bruce regularly uses his position as a liveryman to support, promote and encourage woodworking crafts and also works to create clear pathways for young people into craft-based businesses like Artichoke.
Eleanor is a renowned wood sculptor with work exhibited in the V&A and other leading museums around the world. She came to wood sculpture having trained in furniture and cabinet making at London Guildhall University.
Brought up in a rural village in Wales, Eleanor Lakelin worked on educational projects in Europe and West Africa before retraining as a cabinetmaker in 1995. Since 2011 she has concentrated on the vessel form, studying with established makers whenever possible but largely teaching herself to hollow and carve works of increasing scale and ambition. Her sculptural objects are created using a traditional woodworking lathe and centuries-old chisels and gouges alongside modern carving techniques.
Eleanor works only with trees grown in Britain, felled due to decay. Her deep knowledge and a passionate interest in the natural properties of wood result in forms that seem true to the spirit of the material, and which encourage us to look at the complexities of nature with a new perspective. Her work is rooted in the rhythm of growth, the eroding power of the elements and the passing of time. She transforms wood into objects that invite touch and reflection, reminding us of our elemental and emotional bond with wood and our relationship to the earth.
Eleanor’s work is exhibited internationally and included in prestigious museum and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, Museum of London and Mint Museum, USA. She is the recipient of notable awards and commendations including a QEST Scholarship 2018, British Wood Award 2017 (Bespoke category), Perrier-Jouët Arts Salon Prize 2014 (nomination) and The Cockpit Arts / Worshipful Company of Turners Award 2011. She lives and works in London and is represented by Sarah Myerscough Gallery.
Pre-eminent designer-maker, founder of John Makepeace Furniture, founder of Parnham School which he ran for 25 years, producing a generation of very high-quality furniture makers, and Hooke Park, a centre for using sustainable timber in architecture and furniture, now run by the Architectural Association.
To a generation of makers and craft students he is simply known as “the father of British furniture design” but John describes his career as an ‘adventure in wood’. He first saw furniture being made at the age of 11, and visited the great cabinet-makers in Copenhagen as a teenager. Rather than go to Oxford, he trained as a cabinet-maker. ‘Qualify to teach so that you have options when you fail as a furniture maker’ was the blunt advice from Keith Cooper with whose workshop John trained. Although, the prospects for a young designer-maker were not great in 1957, by the age of 22 his designs were being sold in Heals, Liberty’s and Harrods.
After being frustrated with the educational system that seemed to be anti-entrepreneurial, John set up Parnham School to give students everything they needed to start out in business and to fill educational gaps. He was a founding member of the Crafts Council, and in 1976 bought Parnham House in Dorset to provide larger studios for his growing design practice, where he also set-up The Parnham Trust to provide courses for aspiring furniture-makers. Between 1977 and 2001, the Trust educated a generation of designers and makers who have established successful businesses around the world. After 25 years, Parnham Trust amalgamated with the Architectural Association which now runs practical programmes for aspiring architects.
John’s furniture can be seen in exhibitions and galleries in the UK and abroad. In 2010 he received a Special Commendation from the Prince Philip Designers Prize and in 2011 a 50-year retrospective of his work, supported by the Arts Council, toured the UK. He was awarded an OBE in 1988 for services to furniture design and in 2002 received the American Furniture Society’s Award of Distinction.
A trained cabinetmaker and antique restorer whose interest in the furniture and furnishings industry came from his upbringing in a family retail furnishing company G.B. Hyde and Son, which traded for 128 years in Cambridgeshire. Chris is Rycotewood course director and co-chairman of the Furniture Makers’ Company Education and Training Committee.
Chris is passionate about sharing his broad skills and knowledge along with a belief that creativity, crafts, community, training, and education firmly go hand in hand. His experience of furniture includes retail, industry contract furniture prototyping and as a furniture restorer for the TVADA and LAPADA antique trade.
All these experiences have supported his 28 years role in leadership of an outstanding specialist professional furniture education and training centre that is Rycotewood Furniture in Oxfordshire.
As Chairman of the Education Committee for The Furniture Makers he has a vision for a thriving British furnishing Industry with a talented workforce. Influencing and inspiring, signposting, connecting the next generation into the furniture industry creating a line of sight to employers.
Sean is an award winning, independent designer-maker of fine furniture. His passion for creating beautiful wooden furniture embraces the whole process, from milling up the tree, to applying the final coat of finish. He has a deep understanding of the capabilities of different wood species and always looks to incorporate the natural beauty of the wood in his designs. Sean is a perfectionist who devotes as much time to the unseen parts of the piece as to the seen and has a very successful YouTube channel where he documents his efforts.
A young, innovative fine woodworker, based in Kent, UK. He would describe himself as a creator of modern pieces, informed by traditional methods, but always looking to push the boundaries. His making journey started at Ryecotewood Furniture Centre, renowned for excellence in delivering vocational training for people who want careers in furniture design and making and followed by setting up his own successful woodworking business with his brother Daniel. He is a brand ambassador for Latham Timber, Axminster Tools, and Rubio Monocoat.
Founder, and CEO of Silver Lining, furniture maker and entrepreneur. He trained at the John Makepeace School for Craftsmen in wood to then establish Silverlining furniture in 1985.
Coming from the famous brewing family, Chris opted out of the beer business in favour of a life at the bench and drawing board. Today Mark leads his team at Silverlining Furniture with a progressive design ethos that combines time-honoured craftsmanship techniques with the latest technologies and for supporting tomorrow’s designers and makers. Their 70-strong team of designers, makers, project managers and other specialists are based in Wrexham in North Wales – a base from where they create museum-quality furniture that finds its way to palaces, galleries, corporate headquarters, homes, yachts and private jets around the world.
What unites them is the passion for bringing together creativity with the highest levels of craftsmanship while seeking out the finest materials – from rare woods and exquisite leathers to precious metals – drawing on the best of old and new techniques.
An award winning designer-maker and creator of the multi-disciplinary project, This Girl Makes.
Although, Hattie’s specialty is fine furniture making, she uses different mediums within her creative practice, to spread the message that craft should be accessible to all. Being motivated by her childhood bereavement, she believe that making has life-changing, therapeutic benefits and is a basic human need.
For Hattie, This Girl Makes means questioning binaries, challenging traditions and engaging with marginalised people.
She is an experienced Creative with a demonstrated history of working in the design, manufacturing, and education industries. Skilled in Guest Lecturing, CAD, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Woodwork, and Creative Problem Solving. Enthusiastic advocate for social equality and empowerment with a Bachelor of Arts – BA Hons focused in Furniture Design and Manufacturing from Rycotewood Furniture Centre, Oxford Brookes University.
Founder of Katie Walker Furniture and furniture designer with a background in fine art.
She creates furniture that has a timeless and iconic aesthetic with each piece designed to raise a smile and bring pleasure to the end user. By crafting and marrying form and tension, she produces sculptural and user-friendly furniture that can be enjoyed and handed down the generations. Her formative years were spent working as a designer-maker on corporate and private commissions, and developing the inaugural pieces in the Katie Walker Collection, some of which are still available. During this time, Katie was awarded a grant from the Crafts Council and a loan from the Prince’s Youth Business Trust, which allowed her to set up the workshop where she still uses the original machinery for developing designs.
In her work she combines fine art and sculpture with practical design, architectural detailing and the geometric patterns found in nature, constantly looking for ideas that can trigger a fresh solution to structural problems. She works predominantly in European hardwoods which are always sustainably sourced.
Our thanks go to Axminster Tools & Machinery and Halstock Cabinet Makers for sponsoring this event.
About Artichoke
Artichoke was founded in 1992. From simple beginnings on a borrowed workshop bench, it is now a team of 50 with private clients all over the world. The company’s focus is to create architectural joinery led rooms which will form part of a building’s architectural heritage for centuries.
Learn more about our commitment to nurturing creative talent.
