Furniture Maker
He who works with his hands is a labourer
He who works with his hands and his head is an artist
He who works with his hands, his head and his heart is an artisan
Patrick Turk - the person behind Forest 2 Furniture
I come from a long line of well-respected London Master Tradesmen, tracing my ancestry back to 1706.
In each generation there have been either Chair Makers, French Polishers or Cabinet Makers.
Many of the hand tools I use today are the same ones used by my great grandfather who was a chair maker in
Bethnal Green, London in the late 1800's.
Established as a cabinet maker and furniture restorer for over 35 years following a 4 year apprenticeship in furniture
restoration & wood turning and attaining my City & Guilds in Furniture construction, I have gained a wealth
of experience and knowledge in the design and construction of furniture through the ages.
Although the company I served my apprenticeship with were not cabinet makers this was not a problem, as I have
always had a natural ability to look at a piece of furniture and know how to make it.
I can't explain how or why but I just know how to make it. It must be something in my genes passed down through
the generations.
It would be nice to say that the furniture starts as a sketch on a drawing pad; from there a working drawing is made
so that a cutting list can be prepared.
However, sometimes there are no sketches or drawings; sometimes I just have a picture in my head of the piece I
want to make and need to go with the flow allowing my hands and mind to work in unison.
As with all artisans and their art, it is the medium in which they work that dictates how the final piece will turn out.
In my case it is the characteristics of the timber - the grain pattern, the colours, the knots, etc -
that determine the final design.
Being able to see the tree in its natural environment in the forest, controlling the cutting, milling and drying phases
through to the finale of the finished piece is a tremendous buzz that few artisans ever enjoy.
The birth of Forest 2 Furniture
I originally set up Forest 2 Furniture after some friends purchased a small woodland within the historic
Sherwood Forest with several wind blown trees and no idea what to do with them other than for firewood.
As a cabinet maker for over 30yrs I had always dreamed of having an unending supply of locally grown timber to
create hand crafted items of functional art from.
Although a master in the field of making & restoring furniture I knew little of the process of milling trees
into planks nor anything of the drying process.
The biggest challenge that faced me was not what to do with the wood but how to extract the trees from where
they had fallen (none had fallen by the roadside) and mill them into planks.
And so the journey began, finding a way to extract trees from within ancient forests with little impact to the
woodland floor, drying the timber in an environmental way and educating others that fallen trees have many more
uses then just a form of heat.
Today Forest 2 Furniture focuses mainly on timber processing.
Whether it be for my own purpose or to sell on for others to use in their own projects I still hold true to my original
goals; to sell timber that I would be happy to use myself, no twisted, warped, bowed or insect infested timber.
Images below are of pieces made for The
Forest 2 Furniture
Collection exhibitions.
