Behind the Scenes – Bobby Mills

My childhood was spent playing amongst wonderful oak trees in the West Sussex countryside. We climbed them, we hid in their hollow trunks and we sat in the shade under thick wandering branches. In my memories these oak trees are like old friends, they were good company, and you can return to them now many decades later to enjoy their humble presence in the landscape.

Growing up I worked with my father fixing old Sussex buildings, many of which were oak-framed. During this time I gathered a unique foundation in understanding tools and materials. Learning from the old methods my father was taught when he was young I began understanding how to work with wood and stone with his small collection of tools. We fixed old chimneys and braced ancient oak beams in houses that were built many hundreds of years ago. Working on such old buildings I came to understand how those who came before us made things and enjoyed reading the marks of their making, symbols and numbers carved into wooden beams or names engraved by hand into old clay tiles.

Later I found myself exploring photography and received a first class honours degree from the University for the Creative Arts. Throughout my twenties I lived a fairly nomadic lifestyle, travelling when I could, living in vans and making photographs with an old wooden field camera that I still use today. With this camera I began looking closely at the landscapes I found myself in. I travelled with my camera through the Western Australian Goldfields, along the rugged Atlantic shores of Europe and into the quiet corners countryside, all the while exploring the connections between people and landscapes, culture and nature.

Throughout this time my fascination with trees continued, they became points in landscape that I was continually drawn to. I photographed them, I slept under them and I often thought of those who had done the same before me. Trees stand witness to a changing world around them, still and growing slowly with the passing of time.

For reasons that I cannot explain woodworking has always been in my mind, its something that I have returned to in my thoughts throughout my time and time again. Throughout my travels I often found myself meeting woodworkers by chance. These encounters were pivotal in inspiring me to act on my ever-present urges to work with wood. Driving down old tracks in Portugal or walking through narrow Moroccan streets I was drawn to those who worked with wood.

I returned home to the UK from a long period away and need somewhere to live. I knew a farmer who had an entire oak tree stored in a barn and ready to be worked. We agreed that in exchange for a field to live in in my van I would make him three wooden tables for his beehives. I knew this wood was special to the farmer who took me to stand where the tree stood for over three hundred years. This experience of understanding a tree, of honouring and respecting it and continuing its story is at the heart of my work today. I had found my time to begin woodworking.

My work starts with the wood. Every piece I make celebrates the unique beauty of an individual tree. Many centuries pass and season’s ebb and flow to mould and shape a slow growing tree before my work begins. When the trees life comes to a natural end, I can explore its life and story as I uncover the grain patterns inside. I look to celebrate the tree by creating an object that will continue its story for generations to come.

I carefully source every piece of wood and work primarily with English oak and English walnut. Oak trees are at the heart of the British landscape and are wonderfully varied in character from mellow Honey Oak to wild Burr Oak. England is home to trees that live for over a thousand years and I’m awe of their beauty, presence and resilience.

I often sit with a piece of wood for a long time before working with it. I’ll return to it over time to re-read its grain lines and to enjoy its unique patterns and colours before I begin my work. This process of familiarisation is important to me because every board from a single tree has a different personality. I want to understand what the wood can be.

I work freely, sometimes with a rough sketch but most often with no plans at all. I let the wood guide my hands and my hands guide my thoughts and feelings. It’s like collaboration with nature and my way of finding the design in the wood instead of making the wood fit a design.

I create all of my work with a small collection of hand tools and a woodworking lathe. Working with the inherent structures of the wood I’m able to reduce the aesthetic weight of the wood without compromising strength. If you watch a tree stand through a storm you will see it blowing in the wind as it tolerates large movements and stresses. It does this by spreading the stress along its continuous grain, from the root system to the tips of the branches. By embedding these natural structures into my work I’m able to load my work with the strength and tolerance of the tree itself.

In sharing my work, I am sharing myself, my thoughts and feelings and my love for nature so I’m careful to only do this with people I can trust. I met Sonya in February 2020 after being introduced by James Brown and Christie Fels of Blue Mountain School, London. James, Christie and I were having lunch and discussing my work when I asked if there was one person, they would introduce my work to they both immediately said, ‘Sonya’. I trusted their judgement and a short time later I met Sonya in person to introduce her to my life and work.

I was immediately struck by Sonya’s calm presence and I could see that she and I shared an appreciation for wood and nature. I vividly remember when Sonya ran her hands over a stool and then a bench and I felt that she could feel the tree’s my work is made from. I know Sonya embraces my work on a deep level, and I’m thrilled to be introducing my work to Japan with Arts & Science.

This collection has been very special for me to create. It has given me an opportunity to work with a wonderful selection of wood from different trees that I’ve slowly collected over many years. In making this collection I have returned in my mind to the places where the trees stood, the edge of the field the Honey Oak stood in, ancient Pippy oak woodlands in Sussex and open flat countryside where the old brown burr oak tree stood for centuries. The variety and nuance found in this collection speaks of the unique nature of each tree. I hope these stools connect people with the trees they come from, when you touch them, you are feeling an ever-breathing material and connecting with one of our most important and precious natural resources.

I see these stools as more than pieces of furniture; they are objects that connect us with nature. There is a story from tree to stool that has taken many centuries to reach this moment, a story where time is necessary both in growing and making. My hope is each stool carries the calm and humble presence of the tree it is made from.