CRAFTY BUSINESS
Designed to keep the breezy climes out and the warmth in, the Orkney chair has been hand-crafted on the island for centuries. Stephanie Abbot talks with young Orcadian Fraser Anderson who is keeping the tradition alive
Young Orcadian Fraser Anderson shows SF how he's keeping an age-old furniture making tradition alive
The process of making an Orkney chair is a real labour of love
It’s one thing to discover your passion, it’s another to turn that passion into a career. And while most 19-year-olds might have been more concerned with partying than profit projections, this was when Fraser Anderson made the decision to set up his own furniture making business.
Born and bred in Orkney, Fraser knew very early on that he wanted to continue a traditional craft which began on the archipelago hundreds of years ago. ‘I always wanted to make furniture when I was peedie (an Orcadian word for little), he says. ‘I realised the big difference between joinery and fine furniture making and being brought up with the Orkney chair, it’s right on my doorstep so of course I got into that.’
Five weeks after he gained his qualification in furniture making, Fraser was made redundant. Having already acquired the skills he needed, he decided the only answer was to set up his own business, which he did in 2004. ‘It made me grow up quickly,’ he says. ‘I had to go to a lot of trade shows all the way down to the bottom of England and I did about eight or nine of them a year for the first few years to get myself established.’ While there are a handful of furniture makers in Orkney, Fraser uses traditional methods of making the Orkney chair.
‘Realistically, obviously there’s a difference in quality, but most people could make a standard Orkney chair. So I decided to branch out to do what they did hundreds of years ago when they made the chairs for themselves. They would make them out of the materials available so it would be things like driftwood from the shore and straw from the fields and they would be customised for each individual.’ To replicate this bespoke service Fraser takes measurements from each customer such as their leg height, arm height and any lumbar support needs.
Orcadians of the past, including Fraser’s ancestors at least four generations ago, made Orkney chairs as a necessity rather than the decorative item it has become today. ‘Originally it was known as the poor man’s Orkney chair because they couldn’t afford furniture from the mainland,’ Fraser explains. ‘They realised they could alter things to suit their own posture.’
Another key function of the traditional Orkney chair was to ensure the person sitting in it stayed warm. In a place famous for its wild winds, the design of the chair was meant to keep the cold draught out and the heat from the peat fires in. ‘I’ve got photographs in my workshop of some old guys sitting in their socks in front of the peat fire and you think how cold those places were, little but and ben houses but with the intense heat from the peat fire, it just shows you how cosy it was.’
The process of making an Orkney chair is a labour of love, with each one taking around 100 hours to finish. It begins with the harvest which involves collecting the straw from local fields. This is used to make the backs of the chair. It’s usually cut with a piece of machinery called a binder but last winter brought with it some wild weather, meaning Fraser had to employ volunteers to hand cut 1,000 sheaves using scythes and sickles.
‘I felt muscles I didn’t even know I had before. It does mean that the back of every chair we make this season has been hand cut which is brilliant. That dates back to how they were made in the 1800s. The frames are usually made from driftwood but I do use other timber if people want it to match in with their houses.’
The cleaning of the sheaves alone for a chair can take up to 40 hours and the rest of the time is spent on the construction. The driftwood itself takes around three and a half years to dry and sourcing it means Fraser and a friend regularly search the skerries around the coast for two or three miles. The biggest piece they have ever found was a massive 46ft long.
The only business in Orkney to produce the chairs from start to finish in the same workshop, Fraser is happy to welcome visitors in the spring and summer seasons to pop by his workshop in Kirkwall to see the hard work for themselves, have a chat and try out the chairs in his gallery.
With such time and care going in to each chair, it’s no surprise that their ‘lifespan’ is essentially indefinite. Fraser has repaired chairs made using the same methods he adopts now which are up to 220 years old. The chairs have gone to homes as far away as Australia and New Zealand, meaning people around the world will possess a little piece of real Orkney heritage forever.