A CONFIDENTIAL REPORT ON SOME OF OUR FORMER STUDENTS. THEIR WEBSITES THEIR CURRENT WORK AND WORKSHOPS

WANTED: CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY .

Badly paid unpredictable hard work yet with total fullfillment and contentment for those that stay the course.

So what kind of people are they that take a year out of their lives and join us here at Rowden Workshops? What are the skills and personal qualities that are necessary to make a success of a course like this? This report is here to guide you in assessing whether you have those personal qualities by telling you about the people who have already taken this course and are already out there making furniture in the big wide world.

I have been teaching people how to make furniture and how to make a living from making furniture since 1983. That's over 25 years experience in showing people how to do this. Make no mistake not everybody can do this, even if you are a competant maker you can still get this wrong if you don’t have the full skill set. No matter how hard you work you can still be beating your head against a brick wall. This report will tell you about some of the students that have made a success of this, made the necessary changes to themselves and gone on to make independent successful careers as furniture makers. There are lots more many doing nicely working in other makers workshops, some are happy making and fitting kitchens or contract shop fitting. Whatever you end up doing, start by aiming at the top, you cannot get "promotion" to the best workshops if you have crashed about fitting kitchens as a training .

"Examine yourself, look at your own skills, all of us have abilities and areas of weakness. I cant add up and I am hopeless at details. Yet I dont aim to be "well rounded" We need skills over a wide area so stay "sharp" in your area of talent and if necessary like me find an assistant who can add up." Perry Marshall Perry Marshall

James Morley Furniture
James Morley was a student of mine in 1999. He came to me after a career in the military and having tried his hand at the stock market and as an administrator at a race course. His military experience as a British Army officer and tank commander during the first Gulf War convinced him of his abilities to organise himself and the people around him, but he seemed to need to find a way of doing that in a small business. James used the course here as a springboard into setting him self up directly after the course in a one man business. James is very ably supported by his partner Di. At the end of the year they contacted all their friends and relatives, all of their acquaintances and told them of their venture and gathered an order book of commissions that got James making and subcontracting to other makers in his first year of business. During that time he stayed here at Rowden Farm and used myself and Daren as sounding boards whilst they found a location for their next workshop. This was in Hartland, a village near the coast not too far from here. Here they set up a gallery right in a honey pot tourist village with a workshop, renting out bench space and taking on a young local lad as an apprentice. See James’ work at

http://www.jamesmorleyfurniture.com

Jonathan Markovitz
Jonathan trained in this workshop in the late 1990’s after a period as a building surveyor and a rather challenging experience at a London Art College. He used the year here to develop a range of small batch products that he took to exhibitions in London. His approach was always to set himself up in business with the support of his family. This he did running a small workshop, first of all here in Devon and later moving to his present workshop and home near Oxford where Jonathan runs a small commercial and training workshop very largely modelled upon the Rowden experience.

http://www.markovitz.com

Terry Sawle Furniture

In 1984 Terry Sawle was one of my first students. He was a local man who knew how to build kitchens but not how to make fine furniture. He did the course with me fully intending to go back to his own workshops, this time with a few more skills. He then partnered up with another student of mine, Malcolm Vaughan and ran Sawle and Vaughan Furniture for the next 20 years, before selling it as a going concern when in 2007 Malcolm took early retirement. Terry Sawle is still making furniture, he has set up in his new workshop and when he gets his website up you can find his work on

http://www.terrysawle.co.uk

Tim Hodgekinson

Another maker with a ton of experience is Tim I trained him in the early 1990s. he returned to looe in Cornwall to be near his family and to set up TJH furniture design. since then the company has undertaken many local and national commissions and continues to flourish See tims work at

http://www.tjhfinefurniture.com

Christian O Reilly

More recently Christian O’Reilly joined us after a career in studio design work for the auto industry after working with companies like Volvo and Audi. He translated that 3 dimensional design knowledge into small, at this moment, one man business. Like many former students who come here for a year he and his young family decided that North Devon was a very beautiful place to stay and he is settling and growing roots in this county with his workshop not too far from our own here at Rowden. See his work at

http://www.christianoreilly.com

Graeme Scott Furniture Maker
The next guy I’d like to tell you about is Graeme Scott. Graeme Scott Furniture is one of those ‘under the radar’ workshops. He never advertises, doesn’t have a website. He doesnt even have photos of his work yet this is one of the most respected workshops anywhere within "the biz". He told me recently that he’d never made a presentation to a client in all the years he’s been a successful furniture maker. Graeme runs Graeme Scott Furniture maker in Bideford North Devon. He was a student with me in about 1990 and set up a small one man band in a workshop in the town. He now runs a workshop with small highly skilled team of 5 makers, creating bespoke and fitted furniture for corporate and private clients. He’s currently working on the refurbishment of Leonid Brezhnev's former dasher just outside Moscow. He has previously worked on fitted furniture for David Bowie’s New York apartment, corporate furniture for the trading floor on Solomon's, and many other high cost, high prestige corporate and private clients.

Graeme’s workshop is not about design. His workshop is about making furniture to specification or drawings provided to him by design offices and specifiers. He gains his advantage over his competitors by being extremely reliable, always hitting the delivery date and making to exceptionally high quality. He competes on price, therefore the efficiency of his workshop has got to be exceptional. Graeme employs 3 other people that I have trained David Woodward, Neil Harris and Chris Hayward. Graeme Scott Furniture, Westcombe Lane, Bideford. Telephone 01237 424227 (Both Daren Millman and Keith Fernley, who work for me now have in the past worked for this workshop)

Matt Rogers

Matt Rodgers is a former engineering designer in the world of Formula 1 racing. Matt, with his partner Suzi who is a PR executive and marketing expert, set up Lowther Fine Furniture and bought a farmhouse with workshops attached. Their first piece the Aero Desk with Driver Chair was just exhibited at the NEC to considerable critical acclaim and his first pieces have now sold to a gallery. Belying the myth that a new website takes several months to register in the search engines, Matt’s website can be found ranking number 4 in Google on several keywords associated with his product. How that is done is a critical skill that you will learn in few workshops outside of Rowden. As we speak Matt is preparing an Adwords campaign, again something that doesn’t figure on the syllabus of any other workshop I know about (though no doubt in a few years they’ll get round to copying us and copying rather badly)

http:/www.lowtherfinefurniture.co.uk/

Micheal Connelly

Now here is a nice young irish man setting up in the buzzing city of Dublin. Michael came to us in 2006 and went straight on after a year here to set up a small workshop and design studio. This is one of Europe tiger economies and he has done rather well. Of course its still early days and its tough making through these early days but I believe michael will be there many years from now.

http://www.fineirishfurniture.com/

Marcus Mindelsohn

Marcus first turned up on my doorstep about ten years ago. I remember he was dead keen, but a bit uncoordinated and rather vague. He had a history of working as a panel beater and body shop worker but also had a real creative instinct, and it turned out a real creative bloody mindedness. With the support of mum dad granny aunts and uncles he gathered the fees to come here and didnt stop making interesting stuff from day one. He is still doing it, working very hard, slowly making a name for himself as one of the more inventive furniture designers of his generation

http://www.mgmfinefurniture.co.uk/

WHAT OUR FORMER STUDENTS SAY ABOUT US.

"The people who go to Davids woodworking classes are from a wide range of backgrounds, age groups and woodworking experience. For some people this is the natural next step along their chosen career path. Most people I met in my year however, had already tried at least one other career and discovered it was not for them. They were searching for a new challenge that more suited their personality and aspirations.

I count myself as a member of the latter group. In short, I hated my old job. I was looking to do something with my hands, possibly with wood. A bit vague I know but thats how it was. I looked at regular college courses but decided that I was in a hurry. Having discovered Davids website, I spent an afternoon talking to David and looked around the workshop. I then took the plunge and signed up. Two months later I was hand planing some wood on my first day.

My only previous woodworking experience was DIY related, which I quickly discovered had little relevance to making fine furniture. The first few weeks are designed to learn various basic skills such as how to hand cut different types of joints, sharpen tools, use machinery and generally become more comfortable using hand tools.

After that it is up to you to decide the best way to proceed in order to meet your needs. This suited me personally, as I wouldnt have felt comfortable with a more regimented structure. I decided to follow advice and initially build a work bench, in order to have a purpose-built work area and to develop my skills, before plucking up the courage to tackle a proper piece of furniture. I then made a small box which contrasted with the large joinery of the bench.

I WAS READY TO DESIGN AND BUILD SOME FURNITURE

I managed to persuade friends to commission a piece, which I tried to treat as a real job using the knowledge obtained on the course. This involved client consultations, producing different designs and providing perspective watercolours of those designs to the client. The whole designing thing caused me much head-scratching, but I got there in the end. The final designs were obviously tailored to the clients tastes. However, they also incorporated those elements of making furniture that I wanted to learn, namely table making, drawer making and fitting, veneering with burr veneers, curved work, and a bit of carcass work. Everything turned out okay, were still friends and they love the furniture.

I decided that my final project would be a chair. This was to firstly learn the art of chair design (which proved to be very much harder than anticipated), and then how to make it. There were further making skills that I wanted to practice, such as laminating with constructional veneers, so again I incorporated these into the design.

The phrase that occurs to me most about Davids course is that you get out what you put in. The learning curve is steep if you want it to be. Most people have made large sacrifices to take this year out of their lives and so approach it with a certain amount of determination. For me it has literally been a life-changing experience. I met some nice people and had a laugh along the way.

During the year, I realised that my best course of action on leaving, was to work for someone else making top quality furniture. At the time of writing this, I have obtained a job with one of the top designer/maker workshops in the UK and have been working there for about a month. My first step along the road to woodworking happiness is complete.

A big thank you must especially go to Darren, who helped me so much and saved my cock-ups on more than one occasion. I dont know where he gets all his patience from. Last but not least, thanks to my wife for her unreserved support and for giving me the courage to try for a more contented life."

Steve Clewes 2006


"I could say a lot about the year I spent at Rowden and in Devon generally.For me though,the key thing was being able to learn skills and techniques to design and make quality furniture that surpasses the standards of manypracticing makers, in the space of just 12 months. I still can't believe it!! It helped being surrounded by students with a similar desire to create beautiful pieces of furniture."

Thanks david.
Greig Fensome
March 2007

SO NOW WHAT?........time is ticking.

These people are not extra special, they are tough resiliant and determined, but no more than you can be. Contact David Savage now, to find out more about this course, it can change you life.

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