I have been a woodworker for over 30 years. Right from the beginning, even early in my career during the period while I moved from shop to shop to gain experience, I began designing and building furniture for people on my own after hours. Inspiration came from what I saw being built on the shop floor and especially from the books on famous designers and period furniture I began to collect.

The design process itself can somewhat exhausting; like a musician trying to write a hit song over and over again. One-off pieces don’t really make sense economically unless viewed as prototypes for later production. Sometimes I would drift away and concentrate on building commercial pieces, but always I would return to the design/build process and the challenge of trying to create something truly original. The Holy Grail for me (as well as many others) is an original chair form.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to design and build in collaboration with a number of talented people. The experience is always different and very unpredictable. I remember working with someone years ago who I felt seemed to view everything contrary or upside down to what I expected and it made the process great fun.