Nic Webb's sculptural wooden vessels go on display at Hauser & Wirth Somerset
Rarely have I had such a visceral response to an artwork as when I first saw Nic Webb's creations at Decorex last year. Nic was one of 21 designer-makers whose work was showcased in Future Heritage, a curated area of contemporary craft pushing the boundaries of tradition. His sculptural wooden vessels boasted jagged edges, gnarls and gracious curves in turn. Their surfaces, polished to accentuate the grain of the lime, box and lacewood, were pleasingly imperfect with their hairline cracks and larger splits. One had an exaggerated, fluted rim that revealed a coal-black interior - a feature shared by each.
'I burn them,' he explains. 'I bore a hole in the wood and let the fire do its work.' Whether it's out of modesty or a tendency for understatement - and Nic is endowed with both - he is rather oversimplifying the process of the latest evolution of his work.
Nic studied fine art at the University of Brighton. After graduating in 1994, he lived in Cyprus for a couple of years ‘painting and doing a lot of washing-up in restaurants’. Upon returning to London, he worked for a Camberwell-based set builder, honing his skills for handmaking things before setting up on his own when a studio there became available.
It didn't take long for Nic to start experimenting with green wood: freshly cut pieces that are still wet with sap, their fibres remaining long and flexible. ‘I had a chisel and knife, my tools were blunt and I didn't know what I was doing,' he recalls. Still, he managed to carve a lime wood bowl and whittle a spoon, which he then gave to his mother. That got the ball rolling.' Today Nic's woodwork spans small, functional pieces such as bowls and spoons-he regularly leads workshops in how to make the latter at West Dean College - and larger decorative pieces, which include the semi-charred ‘Lost Vessels' that were exhibited at Decorex.
Regardless of the end result, Nic explains that 'the narrative of a spoon or a bowl begins with where the wood is sourced'. His supply base is varied. Like the arboricultural equivalent of an ambulance chaser, he keeps an ear out for the buzz of a tree surgeon's saw, and has been known to follow the sound to its source. “I'll stand at the bottom of the tree and wait,' he says smiling. Over the years he's developed a soft spot for London plane, which-due to its resistance to pollution is prolific in the capital's parks and street-planting programmes. “I like the idea that it absorbs our sins in an urban environment: our poison,' he says. “Plus, there's something nice about being a London maker working with London wood.'
Limewood, ash, walnut and chestnut are also regularly put to use, and occasionally a rarer specimen will present itself, such as the 160-year-old swamp cypress that came from the grounds of Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London. Local residents, saddened to see the sick tree felled, were soon delighted to find spoons made from it available to buy in the gallery shop. On another occasion, a friend gave Nic sections of oak from an 1830s galleon that had sunk off the coast of Norway.
Now, his tools are sharp and abundant; the neatly arranged axes, gouges and chip-carving knives in his studio confirming the handmade nature of his work. He'll often use an electric grinder to begin hollowing out the wood, which is hazardous work. “A little like petting a lion,' he says. He's also become rather nifty with the blowtorch, which he fires into the half formed vessels. This process not only creates the burnt patina, but is also integral to the eventual shape of the piece as the wood warps and flexes under the heat. The wood may split; holes may appear. The results are unpredictable, fulfilling Nic's intention to work without design'.
It's something he reminds his clients about when they commission him. He recounts an experience with a lady whose cypress was about to be cut down, who asked Nic to make something from the wood to com memorate the tree. “But she'd had a bad experience in her life with fire and didn't want any burning, nor any splits in the wood. So I began to work on it, and one day the wood split. I phoned her to discuss it and she said, “Do what you need to do.” That's the thing with a commission: sometimes something else happens and you have to allow things to be. It meant the finished piece was imbued more with the idea of moving on and seeing beauty in what had happened. Splits can be perfect.'
nicwebb.com. You can see Nic's work at Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset's new exhibition ‘common ground’, opening on June 7.
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