Designer Focus

Each Month we will be focusing on an international designer, finding out how they started out, what inspires them and more. 

MARCH - 2010 Designer Focus - Peter Rankin read last months designer focus

APRIL - 2010 Designer Focus 

This month our international designer is British furniture maker extraordinaire Peter Rolfe. 

Peter Rolfe Gen 11 

Where did you learn your craft? I went to college in High Wycombe and did a two-year course in HND furniture design. From there I went into an in-house apprenticeship at Stewart Linfords where I learnt many traditional construction methods and improved my hand skills. I worked there for five years and became his foreman which unfortunately took me away from my passion of making furniture, so i made the decision to leave and went to work for Stuart Groves where I learnt to work with modern materials and techniques. 

What was your inspiration? My original inspiration was to make things that i liked especially organic forms and with all the knowledge and techniques that I learned it enabled me to push my abilities, making functional follow form for a change. The inspiration for Gen 1, 11 & 111 was a schoolboy thing a 'Chest of Drawers' a pun playing on words, pure and simple. 

Who taught you? I would say I am 50% self taught and 50% has been gained by the knowledge I have obtained through working for two construction furniture companies.

What pieces inspire you most? Art Deco.

Is your gift to create such masterpieces an over powering passion? Yes it’s a way of life.

What do your friends think of your pieces?, as this is always a good test bed, to get feedback from friends. They just get used to what i am doing, the best feedback I get is from the Internet because people are honest.  Friends hold back because they tend to want to protect your feelings.

What plans do you have for new challenging pieces in the near future? I'm being inspired by the fact that my girlfriend is currently expecting our first child. And would like to do a pregnant female form, you could get more in the drawers for one thing.

Do you have a favourite piece? Gen 11, it all just really seemed to come together.  And I am really looking forward to doing more Gen 11's

Have you looked at using other materials other than wood? Wood is what I know. With the Orbs the vine running through was going to be in aluminium.  But I eventually used ebonized Maple, which i think looks better.

Does your partner ever feel threatened by the body beautiful female form chests you create? No, coming from an art background herself she appreciates the beauty of the human form.

Would you consider doing a female form chest more realistic to how normal women are, rather than the 'Marsha Hunt' pouting poses which seam to exude such grace & confidence, or do you think that this is part of their charm. I would love to do that if I had the time to further develop the Gen theme.  And would love to do real people for their perspective partners, I would find that extremely satisfying.

Marsha's famous pose below, was photographed by Lord Lichfield way back in 1968 and appeared on the cover of British Vogue January 1969 issue. She is the famous actress & soul singer and was the lead in the 1960's musical 'Hair'. This image of her must have appeared on millions of t-shirts worldwide and is one of the last iconic images of a revolutionary decade. She re-posed this famous shot for Lord Lichfield in 2005 after having reconstructive surgery after breast cancer. 

Marsha Hunt, 1968, by the late great Patrick Lichfield

Do you ever feel a little bit guilty that these female form chests are a little bit adult in their posture and confidence, or would you say that this is no different to Greek women stone carved busts from thousands of years ago. This is definitely no different than the Greek stone carved busts. My first inspiration was my visit to the louvre in Paris when I saw the Venus De Milo, I was later inspired by Michael Angelo's "David" on a weekend trip to Florence shortly before I started Gen 11. These are my interpretation of todays perfect form, that were once captured all those many years ago.

Your jewellery boxes, have you ever seen the intended pieces of jewelry that you were building the one off boxes for? People don't seem to use them as jewellery boxes, but more as a fun piece of art, I believe they have made great conversation pieces with guests. 

In your leisure time, what is your favourite occupation? My hobby is my work as well, making, creative and designing.

Hurry now and get your order in for your Gen 11, 111, The Orbs, Era 1 etc, as the lead time is now 3-4 months and growing. But all good things are worth the wait. Rome wasn't built in a day.