A man who found scrap metal ship cable had it designed into a chair that is now up for sale for £3,000.
Nick Wright, an author and artist, was inspired to create the twisted black steel chair after spending time at the then, "abandoned and ghostly" Albert Dock as a schoolboy. Now the design is being sold in a prestigious furniture gallery in London.
Nick said: "My first memory is the foghorns on the Mersey. As a kid, my sole talent was for art, my favourite place, Liverpool’s derelict Albert Dock.
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"After school I would go sit beneath the vaulted colonnade looking out onto the rain plucked basin, drawing alternately on an exercise book and an Embassy Filter. The deserted building was a lesson in proportion, the rusting boats sinking in the basin were held up by hawsers (thick rope) stretched from the iron bollards.
"The strength of that steel rope, enough it seemed to hold the weight of the whole sinking city, appeared miraculous."
But it was during lockdown, while walking along the Lea River Navigation, that Nick again saw the steel rope and an idea started to form in his head. .
He said: "I again noticed steel rope coiled on the decks of Dutch barges and, still the kid who can’t sleep for stupid ideas running around in the dark, played with ways of “freezing” those shapes.”
Nick approached metal worker James Garner and the pair started to come up with different ideas for the steel rope.
He added: "The initial idea didn’t work. We tried again. We tried every which way until …. having perfected the process, I paid a patent lawyer. There were no patents on the process. Nor were there the tens of thousands needed to effectively protect it. Besides, I could think of no use for it that might reward even the smallest investment – except maybe a chair.”
The piece was named the ‘Cut and Shut’ chair after the process of using scrap metals and industrial materials in novel ways.
Now the "elegant" chair has attracted attention from famous names such as industrial designer Tom Dixon, and French Countess and owner of Themes and Variations gallery, Liliane Fawcett.
Nick said he was "beyond nervous" when he went to show off the design idea and was given some crucial advice by Liliane Fawcett.
He said: “I said I had invented a process for solidifying steel rope and made a chair from the material. Liliane said the form was derivative of Andre Dubreuil.
"I showed her a knot in hemp rope suggestive of the possibilities in steel. She liked the knot. I showed her a drawing on an envelope. She made a French sound. Then she gave me the crucial piece of advice, “If it’s new material, you should exploit its unique properties.”
“That the resultant chair is going in the window of Themes and Variations is something I find so unbelievable, I have to mentally retrace my steps to understand how it could possibly have happened.”
“Taking heed of Lilliane’s advice, I had taken advantage of the rope’s flexibility to make a Celtic knot on the floor, my intention to create a flat seat and, happy with the result, I picked it up by the sides only to find the seat bellied – and the back rose.
"That accidental form suggested a more elegant chair than any intended.
"In that sense I didn’t design this chair. I’m not a designer. Rather, I chose to capture a form I found beautiful. And I’ve been doing that since I first wandered into the Albert Dock.”
The chair is being displayed in the window of London’s poshest furniture gallery - Themes and Variations.
The Liverpool steel ship cable chair is selling in the Themes and Variations gallery for £3,240.
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