Katie Abbott
Exhibitor
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I do all my turning on a pole, or treadle, lathe, working with green wood, much of which comes from a 25 acre Essex wood which I have owned and managed with my husband since 1980. I use our own trees where I can: oak, sweet chestnut, cherry, beech, and hornbeam, looking elsewhere for ash, elm and yew.
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I enjoy the unpredictable beauty to be found in solid English hardwoods, and many of my pieces respond to the particular quality of the timber from which they are made; our chairs will never be identical, though clearly children of the same parents.
We stay in the wide range of the English country tradition, partly because it is a green wood tradition, but also because the chairs are so comfortable and so comely that it would be presumptuous to imagine one could improve on them by radical alteration. Nonetheless, each piece is unique. Turning for me is a means to an end, the end being the furniture. I would find bowl turning too limiting.
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I was admitted to the Livery of the Worshipful Company of Turners in 2006. I
am one of the few women selected for inclusion on the Register of
Professional Turners maintained by the Worshipful Company of Turners of
London and, at the time of my selection, the only one turning on a
pole-lathe. Chairs of ours have been voted “Best in Show” in 2000 and 2005
at the annual competitions of the Association of Pole Lathe Turners.
Chairs should be very personal and so most of my work is commissioned; we
are very ready to discuss a project with a customer, who can thus have an
input to the resulting piece.
Email: chairs@nkabbott.co.uk
Address:
Crouches
The Broadway
Dunmow
Essex CM6 3BQ
Telephone: 01371 872 705