Mark Hailston, Mark Hailston (Studio Furniture 2018)

For my entire life I have made things but there is just something about the warmth, colour and texture of timber that draws me in. I’m a sucker for buying beautiful timbers whenever I can and I am constantly having to remind myself to stay focused on the particular project I happen to be working on at the time. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to become distracted by a beautiful piece of timber. What can I make with that? How would this design look with this timber but even better that one. If I have to have just one rule it would be ‘form follows function’. The piece must do what it is designed to do. Oh, and be beautiful whilst doing it. I mostly specialise in making wooden boxes. Boxmaking forces me to become a better craftsman. The tolerances and attention to detail have to be spot on or the finished piece suffers. Besides my early ‘training’ in woodworking at school I was mostly self taught until relatively recently. Several years ago I enrolled in a course at Sturt School For Wood in Mittagong, NSW. I have had the great fortune to have been taught by some of Australia’s premier craftsman. Talented designer makers such as Tom Harrington, Leon Sadubin and Neil Scobie are some of the many who have provided me with instruction, advice and were very generous with their time and expertise. For the past 10 years I have been working as an IT professional whilst refining my fine woodworking skills. Woodworking and IT are complementary skill sets in many ways. Both disciplines demand a high level of focus, precision and problem solving. And both are fun, challenging and above all highly rewarding.

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