THE FAIR ISLE CHAIRS PROJECT
EVE EUNSON
In 2018 I conceived a project to explore the traditional chairs of Fair Isle. Fair Isle furniture sits comfortably within the boundaries of the vernacular furniture of Shetland and Orkney, although the subtleties of design details within the region had not been extensively explored. I proposed to track down and survey all the Fair Isle made chairs that I could find and then make a typical example of each type in the workshop. I had no previous woodworking experience, little knowledge of vernacular furniture and hadn't performed any research since leaving university, ten years previously. What I did have were survey and drawing skills, and a deep love for the heritage of the island that I am from.
Two years, hundreds of miles, 70+ surveys, 200+ drawings, thousands of photos and three furniture workshops later, and I have completed the project.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Shetland Amenity Trust for providing me with grant funding from their heritage grant endowment fund and Heritage Crafts Association for listing the Fair Isle Strawback Chair on their Red List of Critically Endangered Crafts. I would also like to personally thank Ian Tait (SAT) and Mary Lewis (HCA) for their continued support and interest in the project.
EVE EUNSON
Survey
I restricted my research to chairs made pre 1960. My survey began in Fair Isle, going from house to house to carry out drawings and measurements of the chairs in their original setting.
Thanks to social media and press releases in local and international publications, I tracked down many more chairs further afield. I traveled to the Shetland mainland, Orkney, Edinburgh and the Highlands to survey around 20 more, in museums and private collections. In addition to the physical survivors, I also spent time trawling through old photographs for glimpses of chairs in family portraits and interior shots. In total, I have recorded 91 chairs, 74 of which have been physically surveyed.
Each survey consists of three drawings, to which I added measurements, taken in inches - the unit in which they were designed. I also took many photos to back up the drawings and made notes on provenance. Each chair took around 1.5 to 2 hours to survey, depending on the style.
The chairs fall in to three categories: side chairs, arm chairs and strawback chairs. The chairs generally look similar to their cousins in Orkney and Shetland, in fact, several times people have described a Fair Isle Strawback chair as an "Orkney Chair," which has become the unofficial generic term for strawbacked chairs.
In addition to the measured survey, I have spent many hours pouring over books and archives to learn about the social history of Fair Isle at the time. Shipwrecks featured strongly and were of great interest to me, since the entire supply of timber for chairs came from wrecks or lost cargo. The condition of houses and the economic culture were also important.
FAIR ISLE CHAIRS - Examples
FAIR ISLE ARMCHAIR
FAIR ISLE ARMCHAIR - Orkney
FAIR ISLE ARMCHAIR - Orkney
FAIR ISLE ARMCHAIR
FAIR ISLE STRAWBACK CHAIR - rebacked 1960s
FAIR ISLE STRAWBACK CHAIR
FAIR ISLE STRAWBACK CHAIR - stitched
FAIR ISLE STRAWBACK CHAIR - child's
PROBABLE FAIR ISLE STRAWBACK - Highland Folk Museum
HOODED FAIR ISLE STRAWBACK
FAIR ISLE SIDE CHAIR
FAIR ISLE SIDE CHAIR
FAIR ISLE SIDE CHAIR
FAIR ISLE SIDE CHAIR
PROBABLE FAIR ISLE SIDE CHAIR - Orkney
Making
The original project proposal was to make a typical example of each chair type in the workshop in Fair Isle with Stewart Thomson - learning both woodworking and the traditional straw technique.
Unfortunately, due to a shortage of accommodation in Fair Isle, I was forced to leave and instead turned to mainland Shetland and Orkney for help to continue the project. I was extremely fortunate to be welcomed into the workshops of both Cecil Tait (Paparwark) and Kevin Gauld (The Orkney Furniture Maker). They each helped teach me to make one of the three chair examples. Both are talented furniture makers who are inspired by the vernacular furniture of Shetland and Orkney to make traditional and contemporary pieces.
When making the examples, I chose to stick as much as possible to the original designs, now and then tweaking things to be more efficient. I used a combination of traditional and modern hand and power tools to achieve this. Whenever possible I also tried to experience a variety of methods, so that I learned more than one way of completing a task or varying results.
I returned to Fair Isle in January 2020 to put my newly gained skills to the test to make the final chair in Stewart Thomson’s workshop. Stewart kindly allowed me to test the woodworking skills I’d gatherered over the previous 6 months, with limited supervision. This was certainly a challenge but a good opportunity to cement my understanding and skills. I certainly learned a lot about the construction of the strawback frames that I would never have understood without making one.
With the frame complete, I then learned the straw work and knotting technique from Stewart.
Stewart Thomson
Native Fair Islander, Stewart Thomson, single-handedly revived the skills and tradition of Fair Isle strawback chair making in the 1990s. After learning the basics of kishie making, and with a lot of trial and error, he taught himself the method from a handful of examples and a vague memory of seeing the process, once, as a child in the 1960s. Stewart has since produced over 80 beautiful hand-crafted strawback chairs and continues to make them for friends and family.
Stewart has put his own stamp on the frame design over the years, for example, by using his prowess on the lathe to incorporate turned spindles below the arms. However, he also strives to maintain tradition: The backs are made from Shetland oats straw, which he grows and harvests on his croft in the traditional manner – a hard, time-consuming and endangered skill in itself. The frames are made from a mixture of timber – usually salvaged from the shore or repurposed. It would be much easier to order timber from a local merchant and buy sheaves of oats from a farmer on the mainland, but Stewart recognises the need to maintain the island tradition of self-sufficiency in the craft, by re-using materials, scouring the coastline for usable timber, nurturing the land to provide, and living within one’s means.
Over several decades, Stewart and his wife, Triona, have shared their lifetimes’ knowledge and skills in all aspects of crofting, crafting and island history. From young children to new islanders and curious journalists – they have always taken the time to demonstrate and educate. Their selflessness in sharing the traditional way of Fair Isle life has been vital to the preservation of Fair Isle Strawback Chair making.
My deepest thanks to Stewart and Triona for their support during the project and for all they have shared over the years.
Endangered Craft
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy outcomes of this project is the inclusion by the Heritage Crafts Association of the Fair Isle Strawback Chair in their Red List of Critically Endangered Crafts.
The reason for this inclusion is that the technique used to create the straw back is unique to Fair Isle and, at the time of listing, only one person, Stewart Thomson, practiced the craft. Although this knotting technique is used in basketry around the world it is not traditionally used in the UK or Northern Europe and is not used anywhere outside of Fair Isle to make chair backs.
Although both knotting and stitched straw techniques are seen in the 17 strawbacked chairs surveyed, I could easily verify that the majority of them used the knotted method. Furthermore, there are indications that some of the stitched backs were in fact replacements, which could very well have been knotted originally.
All of the Fair Isle made chair types demonstrated construction details that made it possible to confidently identify typical "Fair Isle" details within each type. This includes the strawbacks, which have a very distinct frame design that distinguishes them from their Orcadian neighbours.
Also listed on the Heritage Crafts Association's Red List in 2019 was Kishie Basket Making, driven by basket maker, Lois Walpole. Highlighting these endangered straw crafts raises the precarious position of our local oat variety, Shetland Oats (Aets), which is an exquisite material for basketry. Shetland Aets is the local variety of Avena Strigosa, or Black Oats, and was once the primary arable crop across Shetland. Today, this rare Landrace crop is cultivated only in small pockets of the islands, with a total growing area of around half an acre per year.