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14 Cottage St
Blackburn, VIC, 3130
Australia
0413 537 490
The Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking was founded by Alastair Boell in 2007. After graduating from the world renowned North Bennet Street School, Boston (USA) Alastair felt that there was a great need in Australia for an educational facility that focuses on traditional skills.
The Guild is committed to preserving and advancing craft traditions in furniture making. We are also committed to promoting a greater awareness and appreciation of
craftsmanship. In our classes we emphasize the skillful use of hand tools and power equipment and an informed use of appropriate materials. We are passionate about what we do and want to share information, ideas and skills with all our students young and old, from beginner to advanced.
Alastair Boell was awarded a Bachelor of Education (Arts and Crafts) at Melbourne University, majoring in ‘Furniture Making’ in 1990. A month after graduating, he moved to Japan, where he taught English and made furniture for his own pleasure for eight years. While living there, he became heavily influenced by the Japanese design aesthetic.
Read MoreMoea graduated from Sturt School for Wood in Mittagong, NSW, in 2021. After a successful corporate career as an Analyst, she found balance in woodworking and fine furniture making, bringing together hand, head and heart.
As an artist and designer maker, her work is driven by a love of craftsmanship and of timber as a material. She explores both organic and geometric shapes in an attempt to create an emotional connection.
Mainly passionate by transferring his knowledge of traditional French woodworking and marquetry techniques, Lionel also believes that in this fast world of production it is sometimes important to stop and take the time to use, share and enjoy these old-style techniques when working with such a pure and fine material such as timber.
Read MoreLee has had a lifelong passion for learning and perfecting new skills. He has worked as a furniture maker overseas and in Australia for over 20 years. As well as furniture and cabinetry, Lee also handmakes guitars and ukuleles and steel bicycle frames.
Read MoreA chair maker by trade Peter Kruithof has spent over 25 years working in the boutique and commercial furniture industries. His experience covers contemporary/modern furniture, antique reproduction furniture, bar and restaurant furniture and fittings, shop fitting, furniture polishing and design. Currently as a furniture maker under his own banner he works closely with designers and customers to produce beautiful custom made pieces. He has also recently turned his hand to artisanal pipe making and has discovered a passion for the art of blending form, function and finishing that is required to produce a high grade pipe.
Georgie works with wood to create functional artworks, blurring the lines between sculpture, furniture and object. Georgie’s practice explores our relationship to our domestic belongings, aiming to foster greater intimacy with material matter through emphasising tactility and the sensorial experience.
In 2006 Zac completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Monash University with a major in silversmithing and jewellery. While pursuing this he became interested in working with timber. He went on to complete a Certificate II in Furniture Making before working both independently and for several other makers, until he got a job working for Pop and Scott - the Melbourne-based furniture and homewares business. He worked there for four years, spending most of his time there as head furniture maker. He produced the prototypes of new products and was also engaged in some of their design. He eft there in November 2019 to develop an independent practice.
Read MoreGarrett Hack taught at The Guild in 2013. His earliest memories were of sawing and hammering, so naturally after pursuing civil engineering and architecture at Princeton over forty years ago he became a furniture maker. Fundamental to Garrett’s work are hand tools, for the polish of surfaces they cut and the subtle variations possible working by hand and eye rather than machine.
Read MorePeter taught at The Guild in 2011 and has also taught at numerous craft schools around the USA, including the Penland School of Crafts, the North Bennet Street School, the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Kelly Mehlers School of Woodworking, Highland Woodworking, the Arrowmont School of Crafts and The Port Townsend School of Woodworking.
Read MoreChristopher Schwarz taught at The Guild in 2012. He is a long-time woodworker and writer who has spent over 20 years encouraging woodworkers to embrace more handwork in their shops. He built his first workbench when he was 11 and was introduced to handwork when his family built its first house on an Arkansas farm without electricity.
Read MoreSteve Latta makes both contemporary and traditional furniture while teaching woodworking at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology and Millersville University in Lancaster County, PA. For the past several years, Steve has been a contributing editor to Fine Woodworking magazine and has released several videos on inlay and furniture construction.
Read MoreAfter building the foundation in making shoji, Des turned his focus to the intricate patterns that can be made by kumiko within shoji. After completing a 12-month post-graduate course in tategu at the International College of Craft and Art in Toyama, Japan Des returned to Australia and set up a workshop in the Gold Coast where this became the central theme of his work.
Read MoreTom Fidgen is a designer/maker author, musician, living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Tom has written for Fine Woodworking Magazine, Popular Woodworking Magazine, Canadian Woodworking Magazine, Furniture & Cabinet Making Magazine, British Woodworking Magazine, as well as the Lee Valley Tools Newsletter.
Read MoreDuring a 3 year posting in Malaysia with the RAAFTerry Gordon learned how to wood carve and how to use wooden planes with a local cabinet maker. In essence, he discovered that the planes that this particular Chinese cabinet maker was using were superior to the Western planes. Therefore, he had decided to make his own. Other people appreciated them and the rest is history.
Read MoreMr. Tyler is an internationally known sculptor of birds in wood. Having grown up on Maine’s coast, shorebirds and oceanic birds are Tyler’s most consistently chosen subjects. The designs and proportions of Tyler’s bird sculptures are generally reflective of the actual birds and their behaviours.
Read MoreOriginally a jeweller, Susan Wraight belongs to a western revival of an eastern tradition of miniature sculptures named Netsuke. Japanese in origin, Netsuke were originally used as toggles and were worn between the Edo period 1615-1868.
Read MoreSince the mid 1980’s Rafael has been an avid amateur photographer, which soon led to the learning of picture framing in Warnambool. He has continued to work in this field in Melbourne ever since.
Read MoreMatt Kenney grew up making things like tree forts and skate ramps from wood. Now he’s a furniture maker who’s passion for the craft drives him to share his knowledge and experience with other woodworkers.
Read MoreAs a regular contributor to the Australian Wood Review since June 1996, I have watched fine woodworking evolve from the fringe hobby of a dedicated few, into a substantial industry spread around the world. For me, spoon carving completes a circle, because the very first things I ever carved, way back in 1980, were a spoon and a bowl.
Read MorePeter is a former research scientist who has been designing and making furniture for the past 20 years after retraining at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine.
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