Heirlooms in the making
The work of local furniture craftsman Ian Factor is much in demand. Gail Heathwood finds out why.
We in the Highlands are well aware of the high quality of work to come out of Sturt. In its seventy years, it has nurtured an abundance of artists and craftspeople, many of whom have gone on to find international acclaim and robust client lists.
So it’s always good to see another Sturt graduate heading towards that league, as is furniture maker Ian Factor. Ian’s hand-crafted, contemporary designs have steadily been gathering plaudits, and following his first solo show at Craft ACT in July 2010, commissions for his work have stepped up the pace at his Moss Vale studio.
Ian trained as an architect in the 70s, then went into building. “We had three children to bring up,” he says, “so that was the way to do it.”
During this ‘needs must’ period of his life, Ian knew he wanted to learn furniture-making, but it wasn’t until 2006 that his way was clear to start the year-long course at Sturt, where his teachers were Tom Harrington and Stuart Fulton. “Back in the 70s, I’d done a very short course with Alan Wade [founder of the Sturt Wood school], which sowed the seeds, so learning the craft was certainly a lifelong ambition,” he says. “But not necessarily with the intention that it become a full-time career.”
However, it was soon apparent that Ian had found his niche, and his work began to be noticed by the ever-watchful arbiters of what’s new and good in contemporary design. “My work is quite architectural and its influences undoubtedly came from studying modernist architecture, Le Corbusier, and the Bauhaus school, and later, American Shaker furniture,” he says. “The intention was to create unusual, heirloom-quality contemporary furniture, using ethically sourced, sustainable materials.”
Since establishing Factor Design at the end of 2006, Ian has determinedly adhered to these principles. Every piece is handcrafted, stamped with the maker’s mark, the timbers and veneers he uses are Forest Stewardship Council-certified, and his oil/wax finishes are plant-based.
Ian’s output consists of a range of limited edition designs and bespoke pieces. Of the former, the first was the innovative ‘Stack of Drawers’, designed in 2006. It’s a deceptively simple fusion of form and function, an anchored artwork but at the same time, an everyday storage piece with clever built-in adaptability. Drawer boxes are made of Ian’s trademark aviation-strength plywood, the layers visible and integral to the design, and veneered with spotted gum, with drawer fronts of various veneers, including coloured laminate. Each drawer has an inbuilt magnetic bar and magnetic feet, so that they remain stable when stacked in different configurations.
His ‘Iankea’ chest of drawers and storage unit can also be flexibly configured with an Allen key connector (the Ikea wordplay is a nod to the Swedish company’s love of the modular scope of the Allen key, and to the policy of acknowledging its designers), while his ‘Legato’ slatted bed and chaise lounge positively shout of a wood craft master’s deep connection with his material.
Recent bespoke commissions have seen Ian producing up to six pieces for each: a new cottage in the Blue Mountains, a Sydney city apartment and a home office at Wildes Meadow. Initially, he works with closely with clients, and ideas and samples go back and forth until there’s harmonious accord. Then the painstaking production begins. The pieces for the city apartment, Ian says, took only three months to make. “But I’m lucky in that I have ex-Sturt colleagues around here who can help.”
New to the Factor Design core range is the sleek Bamboo Desk. It was produced for the prestigious Sydney Design Week ‘Workshopped 11’ exhibition, for which this year’s theme was ‘Chaos’. “It was my attempt to create order,” Ian says, and so its does, both literally and in the head. Mounted in a white beech frame, its slimline, unobtrusive drawers are plywood made of Moso bamboo, the fastest growing plant in the world (but not the bamboo pandas eat) and drawer fronts are furniture lino, made of pine rosin, wood flour, linseed oil and jute. Ian is currently completing a bespoke kitchen, using the bamboo plywood for cupboard doors and drawer fronts.
The Bamboo Desk has been described as “pure class” by one of the aforesaid, ever-watchful arbiters, and it’s a term that belongs to all of Ian Factor’s work. Here is furniture that is almost sculpture, that’s arrestingly intelligent, superbly crafted, produced with utmost regard for our sustainable future. Heirloom quality indeed.
