Adam and Mercedes Kester Bird and Branch

Hello Adam, can you introduce yourself and tell us about your current practice?
We are Adam and Mercedes, founders of Bird & Branch Turnery Co.. From our studio workshop in East Sussex in the Southeast of England we design and hand make a range of items using the wood lathe as our primary tool. As designer / makers we focus on two main areas, tableware for Michelin level chefs and restaurants around the world and beautifully designed and handcrafted homewares for private clients.

What draws you to a particular wood?
Timber in general is a beautiful thing. From the cheapest pine to the most expensive exotic examples there is just something about wood it that draws us to it. If our distant ancestors all lived in trees perhaps there is something passed down through evolutionary generations that makes us comfortable and at ease when we are around it or holding something made from it. Wood is a direct connection to the natural environment that so many who now live in cities around the world have given up and hardly ever see. Objects made from whole pieces of wood seem to have a soul whereas for us this isn't the case with many other materials like metal or plastic.

How do you determine the shape of a piece when working with raw wood?
We design and make differently to most woodturners in that we rarely let the shape of the object be decided by the shape of the wood. Our product design background leads us to look for pieces of wood which will fit the range of predefined shapes we have already designed. 

Our Spring Selection pays homage to the chromatic variations of wood. What is your relation with this theme?
Whenever we plan a collection of our own it always starts off being; Lets focus on light Sycamore. Or let’s focus on Black charred timber. But inevitably months later the collection which comes to life is one of many varied colours and tones of timber. The diversity of natural colours in the materials we work with is one of the true joys of what we do. It never gets boring, there is always a new colour to work with or grain pattern to chase. 

What does a fruit bowl mean to you?
Fruit bowls are essentially functional items but symbolically for us it's all about abundance. If you ever notice a fruit bowl on a TV show or in a Movie (we always do) they generally seem to be filed to the brim with far more fruit than is possible for the family in the show to eat! Even if it's just green apples or a bunch of oranges they are always abundantly full. 

Can you present the XNUMX pieces that feature in the Spring Selection? 

Raised Sensai Bowl in Elm

The piece of wood used to make the Raised Sensai Bowl from Elm made for the Oros Spring Selection has an interesting story. It came to us a long time ago but had some splits through the bottom half which meant it was not suitable for any of our usual shapes at the time. It but it looked to have beautiful grain pattern so went onto a timber shelf anyway.It was moved this way and that for years, every now and then being taken out and considered but then returned and forgotten about. At one stage it even had the word "firewood" written on it!  Thankfully this was never its path, and it was destined for greater things.   A couple of years ago, during its time on the shelf we developed a new shape, our Japanese inspired Sensai Bowl. When asked By Oros to create work perhaps of a more artistic yet still functional nature the opportunity to finally work with this piece of Elm came about. The Raised Sensei Bowl shape was perfect as this form allowed us to turn away all the splits in the lower half. The void and bark inclusion were an extra surprise and although this made the piece far more challenging to turn it also made it more beautiful.

Fairlight Bowl in Patterned Beech
Our straight sided Fairlightshape was specifically developed to show this amazing timber off to its fullest. Bird & Branch were the first to deliberately turn wooden bowls with vastly uneven wall thickness’, a practice that has since influenced many other makers. An even wall thickness is one of the traditional signs of a well-made bowl and is what woodturners have always aspired to. Rather than being defined solely as woodturners, we are product designers who use lathes to actualize our designs. This gives us the ability to come at the craft of woodturning from a different perspective and challenge traditional thinking. Logically the curved inside surface of bowls and platters are the best canvas to show the grain of the wood being used. However, this combined with the conventional thinking of the even wall thickness rule had always limited the shapes being made. With Patterned Beech this thinking meant losing all the beautiful patterns in the side wall of the bowl. While straight sided bowls had been made for many years, they also had straight sided interiors with an even wall thickness and flat inside bases. Not ideal for displaying the beautiful of the wood. Our Fairlight shape went against the grain and was developed and refined to have both a straight side and inside curve. This created a new and exciting ,minimal and modern shape, which was the perfect canvas to let this amazing material to do the talking.
Patterned Beech is our own original term that we coined for use with timber that has undergone the process of Spalting. To produce this unique material, fallen Beech trees are left on their sides for between 3-5 years. During this time the natural process of regeneration in the woodlands leads to the patterns being created as the log breaks down and once the wood is milled and dried the beautiful results are locked in place waiting to be revealed by our chisels. Between the time in the woodland and then air drying it can be 6-8 years after the tree was felled before we get our hands on this material and our challenge is to make sure that we do it justice and turn something truly beautiful from it.