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Craftsman makes trippy wooden furniture inspired by Hubble telescope

One table he created consists of 725 pieces.

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By Sarah Ward via SWNS

A craftsman who makes trippy wooden furniture told how Joy Division and the Hubble telescope gave him inspiration.

Furniture maker Max McCance at his workshop in Fife, Scotland. (SWNS)

Max McCance, 68, is the grandson of celebrated cubist artist William McCance, and worked as an engineer before going on to train as a cabinet maker.

He grew up in Mount Vernon, in the East End of Glasgow, Scotland, but his dad vetoed any possibility of him going to Glasgow School of Art, wanting him to learn a trade instead.

Max trained as an engineer and learned cabinetmaking and woodwork in his free time - using his skills to pay for travel, which he was most interested in.

While visiting Tuscany, Italy, he fell in love with it and decided to move - ending up spending eight years there.

Max now makes psychedelic wooden furniture including tables inspired by nature including cacti and sycamore seeds, that sell for around $2,000.

Other sources of inspiration are the Hubble telescope and the artwork for Joy Division album Unknown Pleasures, which showed a graph of radio frequencies from the first pulsar ever discovered.

No two pieces of furniture are the same, and Max, who works in a studio at Kinloch Woodworks & Gallery, Kinloch, Fife, says he makes a good living from his designs.

Max said: "I was persuaded by my father not to do art, it was seen as an airy-fairy thing.

"But I always enjoyed making things as a child.

"My dad had a workshop in the garage.

"I went into engineering but as soon as I could I started doing more and more about woodwork and cabinetmaking.

"I did whatever I could to pay for traveling around, that's how I ended up in Tuscany."

In the late 1970s, Max worked on mansion houses in London, earning £4 ($5) an hour, which he said was good money then.

He brought his tools out to Tuscany with him in 1981 and found a niche as Italian tradesmen preferred to work in their own workshops rather than in homes.

He learned Italian and met his wife there, as well as studying furniture, sculpture and design, but while in Italy he took an interest in 'multi-component' work and set up a studio.

One table he created consists of 725 pieces.

Max said: "When you look at things through a microscope you realize that's how most things work."

Some of his work, inspired by shapes found in nature, involves sharp spikes - such as the Mojave Table, inspired by a cactus in the Mojave Desert, California.

To make it functional to have in the home, Max put the spikes behind a sheet of reinforced glass to keep the visual impact the same but make it safe.

The Flora Collection is inspired by plant forms such as cones, seeds, leaves, and thorns, including sycamore seeds, which sparked the idea of having a spiraled middle.

He also came up with the Cosmos Collection, inspired by the planets, including a piece called the Cosmos Cabinet, inspired by pictures sent back from the Hubble telescope.

The Fauna Collection draws on animal forms such as crustaceans, insects, mammals, and birds.

Max said: "I have got ideas in my head about what to do.

"I really enjoy it.

"I try to do stuff people haven't seen before.

"I'm constantly looking around and seeing things in nature and thinking 'I wonder if I can replicate it' - like a sycamore seed falling from a tree and making a swirling motion.

"I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I make a reasonable living from it."

Cabinets can sell for around £1,600 ($2,000) depending on the material and many customers have used the Cosmos Cabinet to keep expensive whisky in.

The Visage cabinet has a 3D face peering out of the surface and inside, which Max said reminded him of a sarcophagus.

Max said: "The cabinet with the faces, as you open it there is another face on the inside.

"I never make the same design twice.

"It will be the same idea and the same concept but it will be different."

He said oak furniture has remained popular over the past 20 years.

Max said: "Everything has got so expensive using timber, it used to be that the cost of materials wasn't that much of a factor in giving an estimate.

"Recently I started working with American black walnut.

"For over 20 years oak has been my favorite, people love oak furniture."

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