New Zealand's greatest asset is its space. That space can be physical: vast expanses of virgin forests which are home to beautiful timbers found nowhere else with names like kauri, totara or rewarewa. It can also be a creative space, less constrained by the tight glass walls of tradition. At their best, New Zealand designers are freely inventive and even energetically irreverent. However, the purity of space and of natural forms are seldom absent influences.
Furniture making came of age here in the late eighties. Previously, the work had been thoroughly European/American in its tradition of wood-craft techniques. The Artiture exhibitions started as a Salon des Refusés but soon became the only regular showing of new furniture. At the same time new Craft Design courses were set up in the Polytechnics, and they started to produce students equipped with a Visual Arts training. Ideas and design replaced technique as the major emphasis, and so included new materials. A regional identity became apparent through the use of components such as corrugated iron or forms from Polynesia. In 1992 an Artiture New Zealand exhibition toured Japan, but sadly it has been the only overseas group showing of furniture. The high cost of exhibiting and the lack of a national organisation inhibited growth in the nineties; Artiture ran out of energy. The 1997 Framed show at the Dowse Art Museum was a reawakening, which continues with current exhibitions in Nelson (staged by the Nelson Furniture Collective) and Hawkes Bay.
The widening of the scope of furniture gives it great potential for the future. Unlike Ceramics it is not limited by its material definition. Like Jewellery it has appeal to both the young, more style-conscious generation and the older 'connoisseur' generation. It can be hot and sexy or aesthetically pure. It can capture the vibrant and colourful young energy of a new culture, or it can give pause for reflection on the pure empty spaces of New Zealand.
David Trubridge
Furniture Making
In the Maori version of the creation myth, Tanemahuta, God of the trees, was one of the offspring of Rangi the sky father and Papatuanuku, the earth mother. Reverence for the forest was solemnly affirmed in the culture by gestures such as the ritual chanting of Karakia (prayer) before the great trees were felled. To the early European discoverers of Aotearoa, the landscape yielded abundance in many forms, and the trees of this rich forest habitat were one of its dominant features. They took to the timbers with a great - if less respectful than their Maori counterparts - enthusiasm, enchanted by the novelty of these new species, their working properties, the beautiful figure of the grain.
This tradition of affection for the forests and trees continues today, its influence dominating the work of the artist/furniture makers of this country. Their early skills development focussed on generating a fluent understanding of the characteristics of the timbers of the land. All share a desire to see the remaining reserves and tracts of forest preserved or sustainably managed.
However, there is no actual Maori tradition of furniture making. Design, carving and decoration were confined to architecture, personal adornment, and weapons and tools. Inevitably, these artists' have turned to the late 19th and early 20th Century European arts and crafts traditions to develop a design base. The philosophies of Ruskin, the Cotswold workshops and the central European stylists yielded the only two distinguishable makers of the period up till the 1950's: Austrian Anton Seuffert, and English Architect-turned-furniture maker Rex Chapman-Taylor.
Today, as the reality of New Zealand's identity as a Pacific nation has developed, the focus in furniture making has turned to the evolution of a local design language and exploration of other materials and processes. The work is typical of the character of a developing nation, innovative and vigorous. In such a small country, a strong fraternity has formed spontaneously around this common interest. You can review the results of their efforts on this website. From every perspective, the results are more assured than at any other time in the history of New Zealand furniture.
Carin Wilson
Havelock North Furniture Maker
October 1998
Furniture Maker
October 1998
