Шотландский мастер Оливер Спендли создает мебель из скал и дерева, вдохновляясь древними ландшафтами

You can sense that Oliver Spendley’s designs have their roots in a wild, ancient landscape. The Dorset-born craftsman’s tables and objects possess a raw power, recalling megalithic stones or the mystical relics of a lost civilisation. Oliver’s work is inseparable from the untamed country that he has made his home. From his remote studio in Sutherland, on Scotland’s north-west coast, you can see the sea, valleys, and craggy mountains. He works partly indoors, partly outside, in a lean-to connected to his main studio building. ‘Being open to the elements is practical for all the dust I create, but there’s also something about being in touch with the weather that I’m sure makes its way into my work,’ he says. It’s a creative force that’s been building since childhood: he has early memories of making skate ramps from wood found in a skip, and fashioning a sword from an old umbrella. Later, Oliver did a traditional boatbuilding apprenticeship. The age-old joinery skills and scribing techniques he learned – the latter is the process whereby pieces of wood are shaped to fit them closely together – are traceable in his current creations, as is the boatbuilders’ circular way of working. His first business was a bespoke furniture workshop in the New Forest, which made use of locally sourced timber; then came the move to Scotland, which was a creative departure as much as a geographical one. ‘I found design through making,’ he says, ‘but furniture only really became expressive for me after I moved here.’ The igniting spark was the Highlands landscape. Oliver remembers surfing off the coast and looking back towards a terrain he finds endlessly inspiring, with its ‘ever-changing, interconnecting forms… patterns, shapes and shadows’. There is also the Lewisian gneiss: a type of rock only found in this part of Scotland, nearly three billion years old. ‘I related to the gneiss through a woodworker’s eyes,’ he explains. ‘I felt drawn to showcase its colours and grain patterns – it lends itself to sculpture well.’ Oliver ‘pairs resonant forms step by step’ until a design emerges. He likens the results to the large rocks known as ‘erratics’ which are dotted about the Highland peaks: deposited after the melting of the Ice Age, they feel almost deliberately placed, as if mysterious hands have positioned them just so. ‘A piece can start simply with the form of a stone I want to mirror in the shape of a table top,’ he says. ‘I rarely sketch it beforehand.’ The wood is worked away, chip by chip, to fit the rock’s contours. Oliver enjoys this time-consuming yet spontaneous process. ‘There’s a moment when the relationship of stone and timber fits seamlessly.’ Given the work’s intimate connection to nature, it has to be environmentally responsible. Oliver sources his wood locally, from small sawmills, while the Lewisian gneiss is repurposed from ruined crofts, and gathered with landowners’ consent. The connections between the two elements are explored slowly, until a balance between form and function is found. ‘Balance plays a central role in my practice,’ the designer says. ‘Both the practical and sculptural are equally important. I love the visual impact of something heavy, upright and grounded, held in place not by glue, but by craftsmanship and gravity.’ His 2026 House & Garden Craft Prize-winning work, Otherlands 04 (2025), is a stellar example. Oliver's next commission is two tables for a project in Skye, in collaboration with Edinburgh gallery Bard. One utilises a huge boulder of Skye marble, while the other is made of rocks found on the beach near his home. He’s also creating another table in an ongoing series for the stores of cashmere brand Johnstons of Elgin. He has every faith that craft will thrive in the digital age. ‘Adorning our lives and being resourceful with what we have around us is what we’ve always done,’ he argues. ‘With copies of copies everywhere, handmade objects will become increasingly important, and will anchor us to the past.’ oliverspendley.co.uk