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Artist Statement
Nick, of Field & Found Chairmakers builds chairs from trees in his workshop and teaching space located in Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula. Nick is an accomplished Industrial Designer who amongst full time design work has spent the last 10 years studying Windsor & Appalachian chair making both locally and in America. These days you will find Nick in his shop working on his personal chairmaking practice and commission pieces as well as running chairmaking classes throughout the year.
Theme: EMBER
As a chairmaker who uses traditional tools to hand make timber chairs, I’m deeply influenced by the beauty of trees and the environments they grow in. My inspiration doesn’t necessarily come from their outward form or habit (which may upset some*), but rather from what we don’t get to see, from what lies hidden beneath the bark — the long, straight grain fibers that form the structure, the strength, and ultimately the story of every chair I make.
I’m not drawn to knots or gum veins as features. I’m not chasing wavy live edges for character, and those nail-filled recycled studs and floorboards are destined for someone else’s workshop — or my woodstove. What I seek is what many might overlook as dull or plain. For me, as a chairmaker and green woodworker, this straight grain is sacred. It’s here that the real story of each chair truly begins — or sometimes ends.
The process for most parts of my chairs begins the same way, with the first strike of the wedge into the butt of a fresh log. Listening to the fibers speak as the log begins to split, watching it fall open and settle at my feet — it’s a moment that reveals so much of the tree’s history. Each growth ring looks back into its past, yet it’s the grain I study to understand its future. This is one of many critical moments when a chair may begin to rise from the fallen tree, part by part — splitting, riving, shaping, steam bending, carving, joining, and finishing. Doing justice to the trees life by living on for generations as a piece of timeless furniture - each chair made by hand, the way they used to be.
But the work of a chairmaker is never easy, and green woodworking is full of risk — that’s what makes it interesting to me. Hidden knots, rot, grub holes, checks, cracks, or even a rogue star picket swallowed by decades of growth can change a tree’s future in an instant. The log that once held the promise of long, straight grain — destined for generations of stories, for nursing babies, deep conversations over long dinners, or a quiet cup of tea by the fire — may instead become heating for next year’s cold Red Hill winter. The tree’s story ending not in a chair, but as ash, returned to the same earth that once gave it life.
*I do, however, have a soft spot for a well-formed Pin Oak (Quercus palustris), and for the remnant Manna Gums (Eucalyptus viminalis) that surround my workshop. These towering giants, home to so many, are trees I’m grateful to be the custodian of.
— Nick Found, Red Hill, Victoria
