ABOUT THE MAKER
I was born in Cambridge, England, and have always lived in Essex. My earliest memories are of trying to help my father in the workshop at home—whether repairing barns, or engineering a solution to whatever problem had arrived that day.
My father built my first workshop when I was ten. During school holidays, while both of my parents worked far from home, I often had to entertain myself. Making and designing things soon became the way I spent that time, teaching myself how to build furniture one piece at a time.
Occasionally, I sought advice from my grandpa, who built sailing boats and sometimes furniture. His influence remains in the deliberately archaic way I work now: almost exclusively with hand tools, close to the material and the pace of the process.
At school, an A-Level in Design Engineering gave me a deeper understanding of product design and manufacture. I am now at university in London; between studying and holiday jobs such as Christmas tree farming, I make and design furniture. It has become more than a practice—it is an obsession.
Each piece of wood I use is either recycled—from old bed frames or cabinets—or milled by hand from a local tree that has come down. The material’s history is not hidden; it is part of the character each finished piece carries.
More recently, I have been incorporating Tasmanian Huon Pine given to me by my grandpa when he lived in Tasmania. It is now illegal to harvest, and I use it almost like a signature: a small, irreplaceable trace of family history within the work.