Joseph Boultbee

From the Arran whitebeam to the Plymouth Pear Cabinet
Frame: Quarter sawn British Oak
Cladding: All of the native UK timber species (ongoing)
Made from 2021 to 2023

It started a few summers back, I was going to make a tall simple oak frame using only my handtools, a no4 plane, bevel edge chisels and a tenon saw.

It evolved slowly, timbers were refined with the plane.
Lots of planing.

Then the joinery, mortise and tenons and bridle joints.

Fleeing london to catch my breath and work on the cabinet. Random weekends sometimes Thursdays and Fridays.

I have been finding and collecting branchwood.

This structure that has started to now tower before me wll hold the timbers.

Back to London again to work.

Back again.

I’m with the trees again, this time the copse of mature Elms located in Westwick close to home.

A rare sight. Probably only a handful of mature elm copses left in the country. Their outline on the Anglian skyline is elegent and distant.

Under them in strong winds I feel hopeless and useless, but welcome.

The cabinet is for all of them, the trees.

The rare sights, the forgotten ones, the endangered ones.

studio@jboultbee.co.uk