It’s midday on a bright Wednesday in London and I’m looking forward to meeting one of our talented furniture makers. Remi Dubois showcases his furniture in a beautiful townhouse in Finsbury Park – the perfect setting for the modern and expertly crafted pieces he makes in his workshop down the road. Immediately, as I walk through the door I can see the Ribbon Console Table, which he later tells me has been coloured black with Indian ink so as not to take the grain detailing away. “The bottom of the console is something that’s called a quarter cut, and the top of the console is called a crown cut. Each cut is used to get a certain grain structure” he tells me.

 

So, what first drew you to working with furniture?

Well, I think this journey happened very naturally, and it started at quite a young age at school.

I think when we’re very young, we are just intuitively present with what we feel most comfortable with. I was always creative and  I enjoyed exploring different ways of expressing myself. I loved design and technology as a child, just going in there and working with different kinds of materials and being in that environment. So that was the kind of start of it.

That’s great. Who are your biggest influences then?

The majority, if not all of my work, is very much based on nature and inspired by nature. I mean, inspiration can come from anything, right? You know, designers, people – anything that we see through our lives, but for me, it is very much a thing that, you know… I will be having a walk through the forest or be in a foreign country and I’ll see something and I’ll make a mental note. I’ll take a picture or write something down, or I’ll keep a little folder of photos or a section of my phone and make notes of things I’ve seen.

And my head tutor at the college where I studied (Remi studied at Robinson House Studio near Brighton) was also another massive inspiration. He made some incredible furniture. So that was pretty inspirational working by his side. There are loads of people out there but I’d say predominantly it’s very much nature-based.

 

I’ve noticed a lot of the artists on Handmade in Britain and artists in general described nature as an inspiration. It seems art and nature are very intertwined.

I think we can find comfort in nature very instinctively. For example, I work with lots of different woods and I love to see the woods from the tree as a kind of continuation of the tree in one’s home, and I think we are just instinctively drawn to a connection with our natural world, especially if we live in a kind of urban environment.

I know London is great in terms of parks and greenery, but it’s very polluted and there’s a lot going on. So, the more that we can feel connected to any sort of nature, I think it’s a wonderful thing.

Can you talk us through your design and creation processes a bit?

Sure. It’s very much based on feeling and emotion. I mean, I’ll never draw out an idea and stick with the idea, it’ll very much start off with a specific moment where I run for a lot of ideas in my head at night before I go to sleep. The lights go off, and I just run through all these different ideas and formulate various different structures and shapes in relation to an idea or a piece of furniture that I want to create.

And then from there, it’ll be sketching drawing up on cards if I need to do that for dimensions and angles, and then it’s ordering the material and so on. I then go to my workshop and start working with the wood and bringing it to the rough idea or rough shape of what it will eventually be.

 

And finally, what made you want to get involved with Handmade in Britain?

Well, that’s a great question. I had been looking at various online platforms to be able to showcase and promote my work and I came across Handmade in Britain and it looked like a really great platform.

So, I sent off the application form and a few weeks later I heard back from the team and they were interested in working with me and showcasing me on their e-shop. I feel like Handmade in Britain, from my knowledge, is the only large platform which promotes designer makers in the UK. We have various platforms in Europe internationally doing that but not really so much on just a UK basis. I love what they’re doing and I’m very happy to be a part of the community.

 

You can shop Remi Dubois handmade furniture here.