Read about me…

I have been lucky enough to have a career as a teacher of woodworking and furniture design, with students aged from 12 to 79 years, and have a degree in Industrial Arts. I have been exploring my artistic side since I first began studying in 1980. Over the years I have completed many studio furniture commissions and have a lot left to explore in that area. I have always been drawn back to the wood lathe, as a means to shape wood and bring to fruition my ideas for both functional and sculptural objects. Since retiring from teaching I have taken on commissions for shop fitouts, kitchen bench furniture and many other exciting and challenging applications of my 40 years woodworking experience.

 Since my introduction to the lathe in 1980 I have been very excited like a kid in a lolly shop exploring the many different colours, patterns and characteristics of a plethora of  woods both local and exotic. Over the years I have developed the tools and techniques to allow me the freedom to create the forms, textures and scale of my next piece.  A pivotal moment in my development as an artist was reading a book called the “Purpose of the Object” by a Canadian designer/maker named Steven Hogbin. He was cutting and segmenting his turned work and re-assembling to produce some very different pieces, conjuring images of movement and intriguing the viewer to wonder how? My take on his cut and re assembled technique was to create boats by removing a wedge section from a textured bowl to create a sweeping curvilinear formed hull. I have always loved this “Tumble Home” yacht hull profile with its curvaceous and billowy form. I think, that within all of us, there is a sense of wonderment when seeing a boat sail purposefully out to sea. 

The image raising several questions: Who is on board? Where are they going? What is their cargo?  Where have they been?

The transference of this intrigue has led me to use my boats as an extended metaphor to make statements and observations on many topics: Global Financial crisis, Vanity, fossil fuel reliance, Global warming, international politics, observations of human nature or just to stimulate the human predilection with sailing away to another life place or reality! 

I have always had an interest in the environment and how to preserve it by wasting less and making more from what is available. To this end I have created many pieces of work using re-cycled and up-cycled “waste” in combination with wood. The framed compositions of plastic waste collected from our beaches, the wonderfully gothic birdhouses made from rusty mechanical bits and driftwood and the quirky birds made from wood and semi-retired metal bits are all examples of this innovative use of valuable materials.