A creative life: Matt Kenney
Words: Alastair Boell
Matt Kenney has been making things out of wood his entire life. While in graduate school, earning his PhD in Philosophy, he made his first piece of furniture – a storage box for gardening tools. “It wasn’t much to look at, but making that box awoke a passion for furniture making.”
A number of years later, Matt Kenney eventually took an editorial job at Fine Woodworking magazine and where his passion for furniture making continued to grow. Starting in the Spring of 2015, he spent a year designing and making 52 unique boxes, a project which became the basis for his highly successful first book, 52 Boxes in 52 Weeks (Taunton Press Publishers). In 2018, Matt left the magazine to pursue woodworking on a full-time basis.
Whilst making those 52 boxes, Matt began to explore the Japanese art of kumiko, which he now incorporates into his furniture. His love for kumiko pushed him to write The Art of Kumiko (Blue Hills Press). Matt believes that its popularity is due to its delicate elegance and stunning geometric patterns. He now teaches kumiko, boxmaking and furniture making in the USA and around the world. In 2021, Matt also wrote a third book, Build Beautiful Boxes (Blue Hills Press), which complements his earlier book on boxmaking.
The Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking is proud to announce that Matt Kenney is heading Down Under to conduct three courses with us here in Melbourne. This will be Matt Kenney’s second time teaching at The Guild. These three courses had originally been booked for 2020 and unfortunately due to Covid, they had to be cancelled. Miraculously we survived with the extraordinary support, help and perseverance of everyone associated with The Guild.
2023 is the ‘comeback year’ for us and we feel that Matt Kenney’s visit in October, particularly his 8-day Tea Cabinet course, should be one of the greatest highlights of this year. During this course, you will make your own Tea Cabinet with timbers specially prepared by the MGFW team. It is a great exercise in traditional joinery, and also a great way to learn the importance of paying attention to the details, from grain selection to joinery layout to the importance of designing pulls that complement the overall piece.
A following two-day course will centre on the making of the small No.48 box from Matt Kenney's first book. Although quite simple, this project demonstrates the importance of precision in construction. The third course will be a one-day kumiko course, focusing on the ‘The Dogwood Leaf Pattern’. This challenging pattern requires several paring jigs, and appears below surrounded by the asa-no-ha pattern.
While in Melbourne, Matt will demonstrate at our free Hand Tool Event/Open Day Weekend on Sat 14th and Sun 15th October. I am looking forward to his second visit with a great deal of anticipation and excitement. Having myself been a teacher for nearly 30 years, I was immensely impressed with Matt’s ability to connect with his students in a very caring and engaging way. Matt managed to inspire many students, which in my opinion, there can be no higher compliment to a teacher than just that!
Alastair Boell is Director of Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking.