An Lanntair, Stornoway, until 1 April 2006

Hooded Throne (1993) by Tim Stead. Photo: Giles Sutherland

WHEN THE sculptor and furniture maker Tim Stead died in 2000 at the age of 48, Scotland lost one of its most important artists. This touring retrospective (which started at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh in June last year) demonstrates both the range of Stead’s talents and the scale of the artistic loss to the country.

A polymath, Stead’s activities ranged from ‘pure’ sculpture to environmentalism, conservation, education and the hands-on practice of tree-planting and woodland management. He also found time to write a great deal of often very good poetry. All of these are documented and discussed here.

Stead viewed his role as sculptor as part of a benign cycle, and so, by planting, managing and felling trees and then using the end product for sculpture and furniture, the cycle was complete and self-sustaining.

In 1996, with Eoin Cox, Stead founded Woodschool near Ancrum in the Scottish Borders. The aim was simple: to take the raw material of local wood and to use it to make high-value end-products such as furniture and sculpture. The fact that Woodschool has gone from strength to strength, employing a thriving community of makers and designers, testifies to its success and Stead’s enduring vision.

For Stead, the activities of sculpting and furniture-making were symbiotically linked: he used to joke that he was addicted to wood and his furniture-making helped support the ‘habit’ of making sculpture.

But there really was no theoretical or practical divide between the two. Such distinctions are the result of academic and societal classification. A large, throne-like chair, in ash, entitled ‘Hooded Throne’ (1993), illustrates this point perfectly.

Although functional, the form is almost entirely sculptural and neither form nor function are compromised at the expense of the other. Above all, it is a fun object demonstrating Stead’s humanity and sense of humour – qualities all too lacking in today’s climate of worthy and serious over-intellectualised art.

Indeed, humour was one of Stead’s hallmarks, as was his Jungian belief in the importance of play – he saw the latter as fundamental to the artist’s creative impulse. The products of these wandering, free, mind-journeys are here for all to enjoy.

His ‘Layers’ series, for example, positively encourages a literal, hands-on approach so that exhibition-goers can dismantle and reassemble complex three-dimensional wooden constructions, demonstrating Stead’s credo: ‘Please Touch!’

In 1986 Stead made a series of wooden axe-heads (a project he named ‘Axes for Trees’), which he sold to raise funds to buy a wood. Woodland Wood near his Borders home became Scotland’s first community woodland and is now a thriving economic and educational resource managed by an enthusiastic group of volunteers.

Woodplaw is also Stead’s final resting place, marked by a gravestone designed by another of Scotland’s great artistic visionaries, Ian Hamilton Finlay. The gravestone bears the simple inscription (from Virgil’s ‘Georgics’) “Happy too is he who knows the woodland Gods…”

This show, a fitting tribute to Stead’s long-term vision, will help to ensure that his ideas and creations live on for the education and enjoyment of future generations.

Giles Sutherland is the author of ‘With the Grain: An Appreciation of Tim Stead’ (www.birlinn.co.uk )

© Giles Sutherland, 2006