Beet, Woad & Rust is a furniture project run by the husband and wife team of Hugh and Reem. Reem graduated from UCD School of Architecture and Hugh from TCD School of Maths.

During travels in Japan we witnessed first hand the craft of natural dyeing, which is still practiced and celebrated in its traditional form to this day. In Japan, dyes such as indigo represent more than mere colour—they represent tradition, culture and a way of life that is unique to the Japanese.

It was a revelation: for just one hue to have such weight, such history. In our world colours are abundant. Cheap. We can pick and choose whichever we dream of. Expression through colour has no limits. Wonderful. Wonderful?

So we came home with plenty of ideas in our back pockets. The details were hazy, but we decided we were going to use dyes to create things that were not only fun and vibrant, but also whose colour spoke to us in the way that indigo did. We wanted colour that was more than just colour. We wanted colours with depth, some kind of tangible meaning, a story we could relate to.

So we started experimenting. We read books. It seemed that few people were dyeing wood as we wished to. We made lots of mistakes. Some things worked.

Beet, woad and rust yielded the best results. At this time Hugh was setting up a workshop. He bought lots of chisels, made a band-saw from scratch. Reem was very impressed. Soon our first seats were made.

While we do not wish say that the colours we use represent or encapsulate any unique Irishness, we do wish to draw attention to the plants or materials that are found on our shores. Each plant or material arrived here on a familiar trajectory, be it trade or conquest. But colours have no regard for creed or nationality, unlike the people who lived with them. They proliferated by seed and hand. The landscape embraced them.

These colours are no more ours than anyone else’s—and yet we know them. We have feelings about them. They remind us of places, of people. We can feel connected to the countless generations that dealt with these plants and materials, those who devoted their lives to them. It is in their honour that we make our furniture.

So we make with our hands. We try to coax colour from our chosen materials. We allow their seasonal variability to manifest. Each creation is unique: particular to a day, to a crop. The colours settle with time.

Our objects are of course different to the those made by craftspeople of yore, who perhaps would have questioned the practice of dyeing wood in the first place. And so craft begets craft. Work begets more. Let’s make some chairs.