Alternative furniture fair Sortheim style in wood

Press, 18 May 1988, Page 22

Alternative furniture fair Sortheim style in wood

Furniture of new and interesting designs has been trundling into Christchurch from all over the top half of the South Island this week for the “Southern Style” furniture exhibition which opens at the Town Hall on Friday. Designers and makers of furniture from Kaikoura, Nelson, Motueka, and as far away as Collingwood in Golden Bay and Kowhitirangi in Westland are joining Christchurch and Banks Peninsula colleagues for the annual show, put on by the Alternative Furniture group. Previous shows have been in the Horticultural Hall, but this year the exhibition is going deliberately “up-market” to the Limes Room at the Town Hall. The display is being arranged by two interior designers, Anna Thomas and Pamela Palmer, who assist the furniture makers. I Since the show began in 1983, a growing numi ber of designer-makers of furniture have taken part. Two new exhibitors | this year are Marcel

Creyghton of Motueka, who makes rocking chairs, dining tables and other furniture in traditional country styles; and Charles Boyle, who is showing large decorative turned bowls, platters and lamp bases from his Woodcraft Gallery. The furthest-flung exhibitors are Jonathon Hearn of Collingwood, whose colourful heritage chest in walnut, sycamore and red beech will be a feature of the show, and Marc Zuckerman of Kowhitirangi near Hokitika, whose main exhibit will be a dining table in heart rimu with unusual wooden-hinged leaves.

One of the Nelson exhibitor is John Shaw, who makes delicate furniture showing the influence of his teacher, the famous Swedish-American cabinetmaker, James Krenov. He has made a little wall cabinet in kauri and fiddle-back sycamore and an unusual octagonal wall-hung drop-leaf table in cherry and ash. Another Nelson furni-ture-maker in the show is David Haig who is well-known for his

shapely rocking chairs in solid walnut. Styles on display will range from the traditional carved European furniture shown by the upholsterer Claudio Roncelli to the contemporary paint-lacquered work of Phil Tyndall’s Millennium design- group and Gavin Cox’s Azzati design team. Both of the latter employ realistic marbleising techniques to give their furniture its distinctive and colourful appearance. New Zealand colonial styles of furniture have enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in recent years, and two exhibitors, David Thurston and

John Burn, specialise in these designs, mostly in highly polished heart rimu. This year John Burn is also showing a large Welsh dresser in a more unusual timber, black poplar. English country styles have been the specialty of Colin Slade of Barry’s Bay in the past, but he has been introducing new designs of his own in recent times. This year he has a new design of refectory dining table in English ash, with highbacked chairs that have seagrass seats. lan Dawn is another who has produced dining chairs in a new design. His are of kauri, making extensive use of lamination for the bends. He has used ebonised ash for his glass-topped coffee table, and red beech for a large chest. A special feature of the annual furniture show is the attendance of the exhibitors, who man their own displays and discuss their work with the public. The exhibition will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.