Timber Talks- skills of the hand
Friday, 21 November 2023
Friday, 21 November 2023
Roger Carter from Humble House Gallery started the discussion focused on the techniques and design elements developed over the history of Chinese furniture making. They adopted the idea of a chair into their culture and over the years they developed this into their own language for pragmatic needs. This was followed by Thor Diesendorf from Thors Hammer, in which he discussed his workshop practice of recycling old timber into furniture and wooden structures. He uses wood from old Australian buildings and repurposes it into a second life. The availability of this studio and skill make possible the designs of others as well as his own. Evan Dunstone from Dunstone Design completed the trio of talks. He raised issues of hand-crafted versus mass produced chairs. Dunstone stated that being a craftperson means you need to have a holistic point of view towards being a maker. You need to consider how the materials fit together and where they are going and for whom they are built and how they will be used.