Retro Chairs MakeoverLounge MakeoverParker ChairsParker Knoll ChairArmchair InspoArmchair IdeasUpcycle ChairsChair RevampProject HbForwardHere we have a wonderful Parker Knoll design classic dating from around the 1970s. Ive stripped back the finishes to reveal the natural beauty of theIn the small hilltop village of Lacoste in Provence, France, Ruth Ribeaucourt creates some of the most exquisite jewelry I’ve ever seen. Ruth grew up in Ireland and started making jewelry when her father gifted her a toolbox filled with beads on her 10th birthday. Her father, a dentist, was an amateur jewelry maker and would drive Ruth around to scavenge at local industrial sites, and she would transform found computer circuit-boards into beads. In 2007, Ruth became engaged to a French man and as an engagement present, his grandparents presented her with a collection of antique ribbons. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she was marrying into a celebrated French silk family. A wedding and two babies later, the couple made the move from Ireland to Lacoste, France.
At one family Christmas, Ruth came across a box of breath-taking antique ribbon echantillons, small sumptious treasures, some that had been created over 120 years ago in the family’s silk factory, Les Freres Faure (now operating as Julien Faure). Where others might have closed the box and moved on, Ruth was inspired by these miniature works of art to create something that could be enjoyed today. (See her atelier here) She began collecting echantillons and passementerie trims (dating from late 19th to mid 20th century), from the family archives and crafting one-of-a-kind handmade jewellery pieces. She combines these turn-of-the-century ribbons, heavily laden with gold thread and silk, with Swarovski crystals embellishments to create beautiful, contemporary pieces with a touch of old-school glamour. (Just last week, Ruth launched a new line of cuffs using silk from the ’20s). After years of renting in Ireland (where fully furnished rentals are the norm), the couple moved to France with very little in the way of furniture.
They’ve slowly been furnishing their home with antique finds from local brocantes, car boot sales (vide greniers) and mixing it with family heirlooms. Ruth grew up in a house filled with art and she is trying to recreate the feeling of a home filled with art and books for her children. Luckily, the village is also the European base for the Savannah College of Art & Design and the family supports the SCAD Lacoste students by buying at least one piece at each end of term exhibition. Thanks Ruth, Raphael, Louis, and Charlotte! And a big thank you to Emily Detrick for the lovely photographs –Amy Image above: In the living room, the large oil painting is by U.S. artist Kimberly Bates. To left, two smaller female nudes by artist Ben Readman, red papercut print just out of shot to right is an early Rob Ryan. Rug and Various cushions Ikea, Sofa Parker Knoll. On unit to left of photograph is book collection of Coralie Bickford Smith Penguin classics. Image above: Antique Glass dome with collection of antique gold passementerie trims from my family archives.
Two antique ribbon collages created by me using the family ribbons set within antique French letterpress frames. See more of Ruth’s home in Provence, France after the jump! Image above: My favorite corner of the house, an antique ‘Secretaire’ desk that I bought for a song in a brocante. Above the desk, a treasured portrait of my son Louis by Michael Porten (SCAD). Antique Memory Boxes house my precious passementerie collections. Vintage Eames chair picked up on eBay. Image above: The Coralie Bickford Smiths F. Scott Fitzgerald book collaboration inspired some of my jewellery designs. Cuff and antique gold passementerie bracelets from my collection. Image above: Coralie Bickford Smiths Penguin classics book collaboration, Louis’s playmobil Pirates and an antique toy car found at a vide grenier. Image above: Louis and Charlotte in their favourite reading chair, a Flea market find armchair repainted blue and cushions recovered in African batik. Portrait wall behind Louis with art collected from France, Ireland and Mexico.
Image above: Dining table from Ruth’s family home. Two paintings by Sujay Shah (SCAD) Image above: Kitchen and breakfast table Image above: An Orla Kiely tea caddy and a vintage Guinness sign remind me of my Irish roots! Image above: Louis bedroom: French Alphabet Print in Louis room by Silvia Portella via L’Affiche Moderne, The three prints above Louis bed are from online site Little Paper Planes . Brocante finds include this bedside table, fixed up with a lick of paint and some watercolour MT Tape, Louis’s antique blue striped Eiderdown feather quilt and this oversized Blue plastic ran Orla Kiely tea caddy & a vintage Guinness sign are, again, a reminder of my Irish roots. Image above: The Ikea Hemnes chest of drawers was decorated with neon MT tape and paint. Image above: Lots of vintage finds are used in Charlotte’s bedroom including this French educational plate depicting a farm scene from 1960s, the vintage Liberty fabric used to make bed linen and the sari (which I bought at a market in London when I was 16) used as a curtain to add a bit of girly sparkle
Image above: Painting by U.S. artist Emma Balder (SCAD), Blue Metallic linen bed linen from Toast and brocante-find vintage French floral fabric made into quilt. Image above: My new collection of earrings using antique gold bullion & crystal. Image above: Two dresses hanging are Etoile Isabel Marant 2013 SS (L) and 3.1 Phillip Lim 2008 collection (R). Image above: Charlotte and Ruth outtake from family portrait. Painting by U.S. artist Emma Balder (SCAD), Blue Metallic linen bed linen from Toast and brocante-find vintage French floral fabric made into quilt. Image above: Family Portrait: Ruth, Charlotte, Raphael and Louis Ribeaucourt. Image above: A door in the village of Lacoste. Image above: The old bakery in Lacoste, it now houses the SCAD Lacoste library. Bodging is a traditional woodturning craft, using green (unseasoned) wood to make chair legs and other cylindrical parts of chairs. The term was once common around the furniture-making town of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England.
Bodgers were highly skilled itinerant wood-turners, who worked in the beech woods of the Chiltern Hills.[2] The term and trade also spread to Ireland and Scotland. The term was always confined to High Wycombe until the recent (post 1980) revival of pole lathe turning with many chairmakers around the country now calling themselves bodgers. Chairs were made and parts turned in all parts of the UK before the semi industrialised production of High Wycombe. As well recorded in Cotton the English Regional Chair Bodgers also sold their waste product as kindling, or as exceptionally durable woven-baskets. Chair bodgers were one of three types of craftsmen associated with the making of the traditional country "Windsor Chairs" .Of the other craftsmen, involved in the construction of a Windsor chair, one was the benchman who worked in a small town or village workshop and would produce the seats, backsplats and other sawn parts. The final craftsman involved was the framer. The framer would take the components produced by the bodger and the benchman and would assemble and finish the chair.
In the early years of the 20th century, there were about 30 chair bodgers scattered within the vicinity of the High Wycombe furniture trade. Although there was great camaraderie and kinship amongst this close community nevertheless a professional eye was kept upon what each other was doing. Most important to the bodger was which company did his competitors supply and at what price. Bodger Samuel Rockall's account book for 1908 shows he was receiving 19 shillings (228p) for a gross (144 units) of plain legs including stretchers. With three stretchers to a set of four legs this amounted to 242 turnings in total. Another account states: "a bodger worked ten hours a day, six concurrent days a week, in all weathers, only earning thirty shillings a week" (360 pence=£1.10s.-)[8] The rate of production was surprisingly high. According to Ronald Goodearl, who photographed one of the last professional bodgers Alec and Owen Dean in the late 1940s, recalled they had stated "each man would turn out 144 parts per day (one gross) including legs and stretchers- this would include cutting up the green wood, and turning it into blanks, then turning it".
The origins of the term are obscure. One theory is that bodges, defined as rough sacks of corn, closely resembled packages of finished goods the bodgers carried when they left the forest or workshop. Another theory (dating from 1879) is that bodger was a corruption of badger, as similarly to the behaviour of a badger, the bodger dwelt in the woods and seldom emerged until evenings. Other theories about its origin include the German word Böttcher (cooper, a trade that uses similar tools), and similar Scandinavian words, such the Danish name Bødker. These words have similar origins to the English word butt, as in water butt. Polelathe in a museum in Seiffen, Germany. The bodger's equipment was so easy to move and set up that it was easier to go to the timber and work it there than to transport it to a workshop. The completed chair legs were sold to furniture factories to be married with other chair parts made in the workshop. Common bodger's or bodging tools included:
The Bodger's Hut at Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre A bodger commonly camped in the open woods in a "bodger's hovel" or basic "lean-to"-type shelter constructed of forest-floor lengths suitable for use as poles lashed, likely with twine, together to form a simple triangular frame for a waterproof thatch roof. The "sides" of the shelter may have been enclosed in wicker or wattled manner to keep out driving rain, animals, etc.[11][12][FN 2] High-Wycombe lathe became a commonly used generic term to describe any wooden-bed pole lathe, irrespective of user or location, and remained the bodger's preferred lathe until the 1960s when the trade died out, losing to the more cost-effective and rapid mechanised mass production factory methods. Traditionally, a bodger would buy a stand of trees from a local estate, set up a place to live (his bodger's hovel) and work close to trees. After felling a suitable tree, the bodger would cut the tree into billets, approximately the length of a chair leg.
The billet would then be split using a wedge. Using the side-axe, he would roughly shape the pieces into chair legs. The drawknife would farther refine the leg shape. The finishing stage was turning the leg with the pole lathe (the pole lathe was made on site). Once the leg or stretchers were finished, being of "green" wood, they required seasoning. Chair legs would be stored in piles until the quota (usually a gross of legs and the requisite stretchers) was complete. The bodger would then take their work to one of the large chair-making centres. The largest consumer of the day was the High Wycombe Windsor chair industry. After completion the chairs were sold on to dealers, mainly in the market town of Windsor, Berkshire, which is possibly how the name "Windsor Chair" originated. Samuel Rockall learnt the trade from his uncle, Jimmy Rockall. At the age of 61, Samuel was almost the last of the living chair bodgers.[15] Rockall’s bodging tradition was captured on film shortly after he died in 1962.
His two sons helped in the reconstruction of his working life in the woods and his workshop. The colour film was produced by the furniture manufacturer Parker Knoll and follows the complete process using Sam’s own tools and equipment. A film copy is available at the Wycombe Museum. In contemporary British English slang, bodging can also refer to a job done of necessity using whatever tools and materials come to hand and which, whilst not necessarily elegant, is nevertheless serviceable. Bodged should not be confused with a "botched" job: a poor, incompetent or shoddy example of work, deriving from the mediaeval word "botch" – a bruise or carbuncle, typically in the field of DIY, though often in fashion magazines to describe poorly executed cosmetic surgery. A "bodge", like its cognates kludge and fudge, is serviceable: a "botched" job most certainly is not. Bodger was the name of a character in the comic strip 'Flook', which appeared in the U.K. Daily Mail newspaper in the 1950s and 1960s.
Bodger is the name of a dog in The Incredible Journey. Wycombe Wanderers Football Club's official mascot is a man called Bodger. The character Bodger from Bodger and Badger name derives from bodging and is himself involved in handiwork. ^ There is no known etymology of the modern term bodger referring to skilled woodworkers. It first appears c., and only applied to a few dozen turners around High Wycombe, the reference quoted above dated 1879 can not refer to this type of bodger. All the hypotheses above are pure guesswork and not supported by etymologists. The etymology of the bodger and botcher (poor workmanship) is well recorded from Shakespeare onwards, and now the two terms are synonymous. ^ a b Wycombe District Council Website Archived October 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 17 March 2014 ^ Wycombe District Council Website, bibliography: (Available in the Museum library) ^ a b Samuel Rockall, last of the chair bodgers, Stuart King.