OL Tables / Crafts Council

This commission for the Crafts Council was a milestone in The Exchange’s craft + community experiment. After almost two years working with community makers, I knew that this open approach to craft education, learning the technique required in the moment, from the inside out — rather than from beginning to end — could produce both beautiful objects and enduring relationships. I was less sure what would happen to the educational culture of the workshop through this project, as I allowed less room for instructive mistakes. In addition, as we stepped out of our institutional space, into the conventional dynamics of commissions and clients, I had no idea whether or not we’d be able to hit a deadline.

In the end, the commission took us into new territory, not just in terms of the workshop’s relation to a paying client, but in terms of the community makers’ relations with each other, with the work, and with me. About half way through the build I remember looking up from my own work to discover the three community makers in the space behaving like ‘real’ — confident — craftspeople. They were no longer deferring to me on issues of quality, but were all engaged in the act of careful looking as they made their way through stacks of components while jointing, sanding and finishing. They knew what to look for, what met the standard, how to stay organised in a workshop full of tools, components and improving crafts folk. The pressure and validation of a high profile commission had given each of them permission to put what they had learned in the preceding months into action in a way that could not have been achieved in the abstract alone.

The OL Table was designed by Mentsen, and in 2023 won the Wood Award for Production Furniture.

Photo credit: The Exchange