It's Saturday in High Wycombe. In 96
hours, Peter Rolfe's writing desk has to be
finished and in Cheltenham, ready for the
opening of the Betty Norbury — the
familiar shorthand for the annual Celebration
of Craftsmanship and Design exhibition of
which Betty is the curator. It's a deadline that
Peter can't afford to miss: the exhibition is
arguably the premier showcase for handcrafted
furniture in the UK, and it's his chance to show
his work alongside luminaries such as David
Savage and Martin Grierson. The trouble is that
the desk is far from finished, with 11 drawers
still to be made; worse still, he's just broken
one of their delicately curved ebony handles.
Worst of all, though, is the late afternoon light
that's slanting through the workshop windows.
It has given GW's photographer, Justin
Lambert, a fresh creative charge and ended
Peter's hopes of getting back to work.
It's Betty minus 93. The tension, however, is
only barely perceptible beneath what I suspect
is Peter's habitual air of quiet and studious
intensity. Instead, it's Carl Handy — Peter's
collaborator and, to some extent, his alter ego
— who paces between the benches, bristling
with the static of ideas waiting to be realised.
Rolfeandhandy.co.uk
Their friendship and working partnership is an
interesting combination of pragmatism and
idealism. Looking back, for example, you
might say that Peter, now 33, came to
furnituremaking by a very direct and logical
route. A two-year HND in furniture design
which — though Peter maintains that, “it
didn't really fit me for the real world” —led to
his first job with Stewart Lindford in High
Wycombe. Working for Stewart on traditional
designs made from solid timber gave Peter that
'real world' apprenticeship he needed. And
when he moved on to join Stuart Groves,
where his work has involved veneering and
lamination, that apprenticeship was renewed:
“It's been a good progression,” Peter says,
“from the traditional to the modern.”
I'll stake money that, one day, there'll be a
Rolfe retrospective, and that this jewellery
box will be one of his signature pieces, not
least because its fluid curving organic
flower-form combines with the almost
obsessive precision of Peter's style to
produce a surprising hybrid, a sort of
mechanical botanical. The petals are made
of oak with burr veneer on the outside,
and open on brass hinges (that Peter had
made, but then finished and shaped
himself) to reveal a rich interior of bubinga
and macassa ebony. Turn the tip of the
bud, and a spindle in the core of the flower
rotates, presenting magnets to the back of
the maple drawers, whose backs also have
concealed magnets; the like poles repel,
and the draws slide open in a sudden,
well...flowering! The box represents 180
hours of Peter's time, but I'm afraid it's
too late to buy yourself a future Rolfe
collectable — the box was also sold at last
month's Betty Norbury.
Carl meanwhile, who's a couple of years
younger, didn't so much choose woodworking;
instead, it rather seems as though woodworkingchose him. “I spent four years studying Applied
Art, and came out thinking that meant I had to
apply art to everything!” His aptitude would
probably have lent itself to many disciplines, but
wood seemed to be his natural medium: his
grandfather was a site carpenter, and he's
always worked with wood. “It just seemed the
best material. It has a life of its own — it's
natural and varied, but it can be shaped and
worked. It's a limitless material; it has soul and
beauty. But then,” he admits, “I have a very
romantic view of the woodworking trade! I don't
see it in clinical terms, as just a business.”
Despite their different approaches, as a team
they're working towards the same destination
— their own workshop. “It's about freedom:
we want to work on things we want to do.” For
Peter, that means being regarded not only as a
craftsman who can make to order, but as a
designer who can create. Though he mightn't
put it this way, the difference lies in being an
artisan or an artist. It's the age old problem of
searching for genuine satisfaction and reward,
and in this regard both Peter and Carl are part
of that long garret tradition of artists who keep
off the chill of necessity with the warmth of
idealism. They even have a patron of sorts in
the form of Stuart Groves, for whom they work
by day, and who gives them space in his
workshop and the facilities to pursue their own
projects in their spare time.
Broken draw
“It's just one of those things you have to
contend with,” shrugged Peter, examining
the broken handle. “And a good
cabinetmaker is a good problem-solver.
The skill, though, is to find the easiest route
through a problem.” In the case of the
handle, then, the easiest route is a dab
of PVA; when it comes to dovetails, he
reckons that the best solution is the router.
It's partly a question of time — “I machine
dovetails because it takes five times longer
to make them by hand” — and partly
because the precision matches his style.
“I defy anyone to make a crisper job of a
dovetail working by hand. So no, I don't
feel the need to stick to traditional
techniques. Besides,” he laughs, “what
we're doing now will be traditional in
50 years time when we're using our
laser-cutting hand routers.”
Enlightenment
And time is the key. The desk already stands
Peter in at more than 200 hours, an investment
hidden in its design, which is deceptively simple
(“I like to think of it as mature,” says Peter).
Inevitably, though, the simplicity brings its own
complexity because it shows up any flaws.
MDF, biscuits and Dominoes, however, provide
the machined-from-billet planes that make a
perfect base for the desk's macassa ebony
veneer, its ebony stringing, and inlaid patterns
of stained tulip. “A modern material and
modern construction,” says Peter, running a
hand over the 24 leaves that cover the top. “You
couldn't make this out of solid” — though in
fairness the 11 wedge-shaped drawers running on their dovetailed sliders are made of oak.
This willingness to adopt modern materials
and methods is central to his very rational
approach to fine cabinetmaking: unlike Carl,
who talks about the melody of working wood
with hand tools (see p50), Peter says that he
tends to use hand tools when power tools
won't do the job. Their different approaches,
however, again find common ground in a view
of their craft as a type of enlightenment. For,
just as the eighteenth-century Enlightenment
broke the hold of the Church by rejecting its
traditional ideas and values in favour of the
human paradigm, so they're using their very
real abilities to kick against the secular trinity of
the twenty first-century 'Church' - consumption,
consumerism, and commercialism.
For his part, Peter is defying a society in
which mass-manufacturing is better
remunerated than genuine creativity: “In the
small circle of my existence, creativity is
important,” and for his reward he has the thrill
of designing something that provokes a
reaction. “What pushes me on is the feeling of
appreciation; listening to people's comments
gives me a buzz.” There's a price to be paid for
creative independence, of course: “I see myself
always having to work as hard as I do now. It is
all-consuming, and it's definitely not about the
money — though it'd be nice to earn a living,”
he adds. Is that so unrealistic? “Yes. Not once
you've got a name, perhaps, but breaking into
the market” — actually getting people to look
long enough to recognise the value of his brand
of fine furniture — “that's the problem.”
And that's where Carl comes in, bucking the tide of unreasoning consumerism. “When I'm a
consumer,” he says, “I look for the things that
are made with skill and care, even if it means
buying second-hand.” In the same way, he
wants to produce work that will make people
stop and think about the skill and craft that's
embodied in the thing itself. And that's why
the impending deadline is so important; that's
why the desk has to be there when the doors of
the Betty Norbury open…
Postscript: Betty plus 24
The drawer was repaired, the drawers made,
and after 260 hours of work the desk was
finished and delivered to the show — and sold!
What's more the buyer has asked Peter to
make a stool to match, and another desk has
been commissioned, too. It's even been
suggested that the desk should be submitted
for a guild mark - a Michelin star, if you like,
conferred by the Worshipful Company of
Furnituremakers. “Best of all, I got a lot of
positive feedback on my design skills. I couldn't
have hoped for better!”
Find out more at www.rolfeandhandy.co.uk
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