A sense of place
- Wycliffe trained with master furniture designer Rod Wales
- He is inspired by forgotten or fallen trees
- The title of each work reflects the location where the timber was found
Wycliffe Stutchbury's love affair with wood started with his father’s toolbox. “He had this box and when you opened it up, all the woodworking tools had their own little places, their own little clips and their own compartments,” he says. Wycliffe went on to work as a successful furniture maker for 25 years, but eventually realised that his heart wasn’t in it any more. His passion was for the wood itself, not furniture. After graduating in 3D craft from the University of Brighton, he started to create abstract landscapes and sculptures in timber. “I’ll cut a piece of wood open and it will be the characteristic of the timber, the colour, the grain direction or the texture, which will lead me,” he says.
Interview
- What does wood represent for you?
- It's friendly and warm. Trees are just amazing. They are majestic things in the landscape and their huge strong structures just come from air and some water; it’s magic. But it's also wood's unpredictability, as well as the smell, the colour and the way it responds to the environment.
- How do you choose your material?
- Weathered timber produces the most amazing colours and textures and I don't want to do anything to it. I look for colour, texture and the narrative in it – if it's telling a story about the elements (the wind, the rain and the sun) and if it has stains or defects.
- Why do you name your pieces after the place you found the wood?
- I only use timber from one place for each piece because the provenance of the timber is very important to me. Sense of place is central to my work. It's all been in the same place, in the same soil, with the same weather, experience and history.
- What has working with wood taught you?
- It’s resilient, it’s strong, it’s robust and yet it’s fragile. It's never the same and that is partly what's so lovely about it, especially in comparison with the uniformity of steel or plastic.
Wycliffe Stutchbury is a master artisan: he began his career in 1985 and he started teaching in 2004
Works
Where
Wycliffe Stutchbury
