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7 Alex Pike Drive, Raleigh NSW 2454
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27 Aug 2024 | < 1 minute

My journey into woodwork

One of my first memories of woodwork is as a small boy on the woodwork benches at the pre-school kindergarten I attended in Penrith NSW.
Growing up on an old peach orchard with river frontage meant all my time was spent on the Nepean River in sailing boats or canoes. Repairs to boat hulls and paddles were needed, my making life began.

I first acquired industrial woodwork skills when I got a job in a joinery in my gap year……. As I look back, I realize that the year I attended university was actually my gap year, and a sheditary life is where I belong. After my university gap year and a year of travel I returned to the joinery, ‘Branches Timber Craft’ in the Blue Mountains and spent 4 years learning the basics of my trade making timber doors and windows, kitchens and some pieces of furniture.

In the 90’s I moved to 5acres on the Dorrigo plateau where I set up a rudimentary workshop and reveled in the beautiful timbers of the area. My design skills and timber working skills started to mature in these formative years. I also continued to make custom joinery and kitchens.

 

Many of my pieces are commissions that have my client’s guidelines attached to them. Others are designs that have worked before and I will re-make for the gallery, and then there are other pieces where I can just play and make the one off piece that I want to make.

Over the years there have come many side hustles. I have taught woodwork in my own workshop, at Bellingen’s Camp Creative, and furniture design at the Coffs Harbour TAFE workshop. I kiln dry and sell timber. I now also own and operate Tree-O gallery which sells works by many local artists, but the pleasure of making is what it’s all about for me.

In the words of Pablo Picasso “It takes a long time to become young”

I still feel the wonder of the little boy at the woodwork bench in kindergarten, but my lifetime of working with timber means that as I face my 60th decade on this planet, I can move forward with the design and technical skills I have learnt along the way, and fully commit to making stuff.