Weekly update.

Well it's been a good week. I've spent the majority of the week trying to get all the parts that I need to get the two sets of stools done. I had to track down some Celery Top Pine for the set that was ordered from the Gallery. I found a really good timber mill here and ordered on Monday at lunch time and received the timber on Tuesday at lunch time. So it was good to get it quick. This week I dimensioned all the timber for both sets and began the finger jointing. I have to go down to Hobart to get the leather that I need and also the plywood. So I plan to make a quick day trip on Monday and get all that.

I've had a good opportunity this week to be a part of a lot of photo taking for the school. Simon our head of school has a really good eye for photography. He has taken some shots of my chair and stool. So let me know what you think of the shots.

There are a couple of shots with some of the chairs of my fellow students. They are the chairs of Fiona Perry and Jye Edwards. The other kid in the photo was really there waiting for the bus.

Goodnight and stay classy...

What a great day it has been.

Well I woke up this morning thinking it was going to be a good weekend. Having had a OK week, trying to get Nalu 2.0 worked out. I made some seats out of plywood that I made myself also. The seats are a lot stronger than the last ones that I made. But squaring them up has proven to be a little bit difficult. This is because I made the plywood out of 1mm thick veneers. I had to edge glue 2 pieces together to give the width that I needed. But because nothing starts off square it's had to get it squared. But I think that I should be able to get them ready.

I have to thank my good friend Gregg Deal @ GSon Studios. He has helped me out to get my website up so that I can test out the waters and get some feedback. So right now it is up and linked through his site and company, here's the link:

www.gsonstudios.com/client/kaleo/Intro.swf

Just copy and paste this link into you browser. I couldn't get it to become a active link.


So please let me know what you all think about it.

Last but defiantly not least, I received a very unexpected phone call this morning. Usually on Saturday morning my Mom calls to say hello and talk. So when the phone rang at about 10:00 am our time I thought nothing about it. So when I picked up the phone and heard is this Kaleo, I thought "I wonder who this is" Telemarketers never get my name right, so this person must know me. Well it was The Design Centre, the gallery that I have my Nalu stools at, informing that they had just sold a set of 4 stools and that they have a deposit and they need to be ready in 4-6 weeks.



So it's official, my first sale and now I am a furniture maker. Needless to say I am just over the moon about this. The people that bought them are from Melbourne. I still can't believe that someone picked my stool over the 5 other types of stools that are in there. I guess what it does is gives me hope for the future, which is coming up way to fast.

Nalu 2.0

Well I spent the day today making a true to life mock up of the new Nalu stool. Which I am calling Nalu 2.0. I thought I would make a few adjustments to it for the competition in Hobart.



I have thinned it out alot. Instead of the whole thing being 30mm thick it is now 25mm thick. The sides are now 45mm wide instead of 55mm. The top rails and the feet also now taper from back to front, and then they are rounded into the front legs. So there is a real gentle curve in the inside corners. I think that this gives the stool a really light feel. I made it so that I could test the strength to make sure it holds up. So far so good. Tomorrow I am going to stand on it to see what happens. I made this mock up out of Tasmanian Blackwood. I think it looks really good, and plan to make the next set for the show out of Blackwood. From start to finish on this mock up took a total of 1.5 hours. I hope to be able to make the next three in about 15 total hours with seats and everything. The seats for these new stools with be attached with a stainless steel spacer between the stool and the seat. I think this will give a really nice touch. We shall see.

The Chair is finally done-

Well today marked the end of our chair project. Needless to say that I wasn't really into this project. I spent the first 2 weeks designing a chair that I really didn't like, but thought that I had to build. I worked on it and built a prototype. Still I didn't like it. Then I spent a week attempting to build it. But I was moving really slow with it.

Last weekend I decided to redesign and make a chair that I thought would be cool. So this is the result.




It is made with Tasmania Blackwood and Brazilan Walnut. It's a real simple design, just a couple of frames with rails in which the seat sits on. I had a real fun time shaping the seat. I don't have a good picture of it, but I shaped the seat and the back by hand. It's real subtle but nice. The back is also on a pivot, so when you sit into the chair the back form to your angle of sit.



Well I have about 3 weeks to get a new set of stools together with a few design changes. I am going to make a new set for the exhibition in Hobart. So this should be fun. I'll keep you up to date with how it goes.

Until then...

Great News.. (for me)

Well today I found out about the juried exhibition in Hobart, Tasmania, and I got in. I received an email from the event organizers telling my that I had made the cut. There were 24 entries and they narrowed it down to 12 to participate in the show. Needless to say I am extremely excited to just be in the show. There are some really big names in Australian Furniture Designers in this show. Leon Saduben who was a guest instructor at our school last year. Along with a few designers from Tassie here, Kevin Perkins and Brenon Sharpe. So I am just happy to be in such company. But the 1 in 12 chance to win 7000.00 dollars isn't bad either.

I was told that the judges are interested in me displaying my Nalu Stools. So I will either make a few new ones, all from different timbers, or hope to possibly display my chair. ( when it's done ).



On the chair front, I spent the weekend redesigning it, because I just wasn't feeling the last one. And I should have it done here by the end of the week. I will take a few pictures of the progress. I actually hope to make a short video on the design and making process of this piece. So we'll see if that happens. Anyways, until next time.

Kaleo

Craft in America

I found this the other day. There is what looks to be a great documentry coming to PBS in America on May 30. It's a 3 part series, but they are showing the whole thing that night starting at 8pm. It's called Craft in America. It focuses on all sorts of crafts, but with my interests it willhave interviews with Sam Maloof and George Nakasihma. Here is a great preview for the show. It's a bit long so bare with it, it's worth it.

Shop Tour

I told you that finding out how to upload video was going to change things. Thanks to our friends at Lumberjocks.com, they are sponsoring another contest. They have asked that we give a video tour of our shop. So I thought take the challenge and make a short movie to enter. I also thought this is a good way to let you all see a little part of my daily life. So I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think, and any ideas you might have for other videos.

kalafinefurniture@gmail.com

Click To Play

Just a quick overview of a typical day in my life. At least a typical day when school is involved. This doesn't include my daily family life at all.

Kaleo

Testing a new idea..

This has nothing to do with woodworking or furniture making, but it could lead to some cool things here. First I have to thank Marc Spagnola at The Woodwhisperer Video Blog. Here had a short video on how to upload your videos. So Marc if you read this thanks alot.

The video is a few shorts take with our digital camera, so the quality is not that good. But they can only get better. If you have any ideas of things you might want to see, let me know and I will see what I can do to help out. Please to be enjoying.

Click To Play

A few short movies and picture from our digital camera. The quailty isn't very good, but this is an experiment.

Website

I thought I would post a screenshot of the homepage of my upcoming website. I hope to have it all worked out here in the next 4 weeks or so. I have noticed that I love learning how to create and design websites. I really like the idea that I can design and create the furniture and also design and control how one looks at it on the web. I hope to be able to get better at web design to maybe be able to do a little design on the side.

Anyways let me know what you think of the look and feel of the homepage. Thanks

A weekly thing

I've noticed this has become a weekly thing. I think that I might have burned myself out. Lately I haven't had a lot of energy for this project. I figured out that for every project that I have had so far, I was flat out for weeks getting it done. Last week was really hard, but this week has been better. I finalized design for my lounge chair, and did what always cheers me up. I started to cut wood.

I rough dimensioned all the wood I need for the chair. Rough because I'm using 38 mm stock or 1.5 inch stock. So I just cleaned all the surfaces and squared up the timber. This is so that I can let the timber sit for a couple of days and do all the moving that it wants, and them I can mill it down to final dimension after.

I've decided to use Tasmania Blackwood for the chair. I have a really nice bit of Brazil an Walnut that I wanted to use. Because I really want a nice dark timber. But I just don't have enough to do the chair. And Blackwood is the darkest timber that they have here in Tasmania. It's a beautiful wood, but I might have to stain it to the color that I want.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I haven't had anything really to photograph yet. I am only suppose to have the next 2 weeks to built this chair. But at the rate that I am going right now I'll have to use the extra couple of weeks before the exhibition to finish the chair and the ottoman that I plan to build.

So wish me luck!!

What a week

Well this week is finally over. I don't know what the problem with me has been. But this unit has not been interesting to me. Right now I am trying to design a chair. Our instructor is really good. I think that he hoped we would all do dining chairs. But I have decided to design a lounge chair. But I have had almost no inspiration at all. I have a cool design, at least I think it's cool. But it doesn't sing to me, I'm definitely not in love with this design. At least not yet.

I spent the week building a full size mock-up. That has not been fun. Nothing was working as I thought it would. The design didn't look like I imagined it. But yesterday I think I had a good win. Things finally came together.

The chair is very geometrical. It's made up of triangle shapes. I like to think it's a very modern interpretation of a Morris chair. I hope it to be as inviting and comfortable as a Morris chair. I will take a few pictures of the mock up next week. We have to start building this thing soon. The chair has to be completed by the 18th of May. So there is a lot of work to be done. I'll let you all know how it goes.

I have put a Hit counter and a Hit Map at the bottom of the page. I have been pleasantly surprised with the amount of readers and where you all are from. Although the map doesn't tell me where you are specifically. I would love you all to tell me where you are and what you think of the blog. And ways that I might improve and make it better. Let me know what you think. Leave me a comment or continue to email me.

kalafinefurniture@gmail.com



Kaleo

Back in full swing..

Sorry that it has been so long since I have posted something. This last week has just been crazy. Our new instructor arrived on Monday, his name is Evan Dunstone. He is a designer maker from Canberra. You can see his stuff on www.dunstonedesign.com.au . He is a well of knowledge on all thing wood related. I have never met someone that has an answer to almost any questions about wood that you could have. He is a master at choosing and accentuating grain and it's direction.

So he is here for our chair unit. Which for me is getting off to a slow start. I am having a real hard time with this unit so far. Nothing is inspiring me, none of my drawing have just jump out and said make me. But I have a few good ideas, that I might just have to develop. I have until Monday to get something designed and resolved. So it's going to be a long weekend.

I also spent a lot of time this week putting together my Resume and Artist statement and some photos for the juried competition in June. Only one other person besides myself entered from our class. I was surprised that no one else did. But that's OK by my. I also am getting some things ready to send to Fine Woodworking. They are doing a readers gallery issue all about students and there work. So I have to get another CD ready of images. That has to be in early next month.

Other than that nothing new to report. I hope to get a mock up of my chair built soon. Then I will post some pictures of it. Until then be good all.

It's official..

Well today it became official. I delivered my stools to The Design Centre. And they will be officially displayed as of Monday. I have to say that this is a pretty cool feeling. I know that it will be even cooler when they sell.(if they sell) But you know what as cool as it would be, hey if they never sell at least I can now say I have a piece displayed at a major gallery. My Resume now reads Kaleo Kala with pieces displayed in The Design Centre Gallery in Australia. I guess I should put Tasmania, but man Australia looks and sounds much cooler.

I spent the day making my own plywood out of veneers for some more seats for more stools. I guess I am being a little optimistic, just in case. Also I took some nice photos with the back drop down. I am getting everything together to get my application in for this juried exhibition in Hobart. The application has to be in by next Friday, or as the say here in Australia Friday week.



Anyways for those of you that have asked to be signed up for the email alerts please let me know if they work. Some of you I just signed up because I thought you wouldn't mind and anyways your friends and I don't care if you don't want to read my blog, read it anyways. I would read yours if you all had one.

Some new features

I've thought of adding a few new features to this blog.

They are these:

Google Ads on the side bar
The Stat Counter
Ability for readers to receive an email when a new post is written

Let me know what you think. As you can tell at the bottom of the page I have already added the stat counter. But the other 2 I am still thinking about. The emails will only happen if you want them to. This is because you will have to send me your email so that I can add you to the list. So send them to me if you are interested- kalafinefurniture@gmail.com- and I will add you to the list.

Google ads will put adds on the side bar of the blog that are relevant to the subject matter on the blog. This means if we are talking about glues or something, then there should some links to shops or glue sites there. We can always run a test and see if it works. If it doesn't I can always take it back off. Let me know what you think.

Kaleo

A Woodie or not a Woodie... that is the question

Well I have spent this Easter weekend having a great time with the family and friends. But it has given me time to think about what I have been able to accomplish in the last 6 short weeks. And also to ponder what I would like to have happen in the upcoming future. (Both near and far)

I told you all about the last teacher that we had, by the name of Jono Everret. He was a great and inspiring teacher. I think that he was able to get me to develop some great ideas. But it got me thinking. What I wanted to be when I grow up.

What do I mean by that? Well coming into this course I thought that I knew a fair bit about woodworking. I found that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. But over the last 18 months or so I have learned more than I could have thought. So the question that I ask myself now is do I want to be a Woodie or a Designer?

I recently read a post on a woodworking website about a guy is thinking of starting a woodworking business. He was asking for advice. Someone wrote to him and said, well first you need to decide which genre you are going to work in Arts and Crafts, Shaker, Federal period. I thought to myself WHAT!!

I thought why would you want to limit yourself that way. Sure you can make a great living producing things that have already been done, maybe put your own little spin on it, but why? I thought why would you not want to do what you want. Why not design your own pieces. Why limit your views?

A woodie is someone who builds for the shear technical challenge of it. He or she puts dovetails in a piece just because they like to cut hand cut dovetails. Not because the design of the piece calls for them. A woodie is someone who wants to show off his skill to the point that only other woodies would realize what it took to make that. But the ordinary person would have no clue or appreciate what is there.

A designer makes a piece that talks to you, but not just another woodie or designer, but to everyone. Is exposed joinery necessary, is a question that he asks. Does it distract from the overall look of the piece. A designer has an answer to the question "why did you do that?". And his answer isn't "because I thought it would look good.".

Can I be a woodie, of course I can. I can make anything that you might want. I can hand cut a dovetail with the best of them. I can make a mortise and tenon or a super secret mitered dovetail. I can do all of that, but will a general customer appreciate that, maybe but most likely not. If they do, then they understand the extra cost things like that entail.

But I ask you can a woodie be a designer? Now that is the question. I think that it is possible. But most woodies think that it takes extra art talent and things like that to be able to design. Does it, maybe? But I think that most woodies except that they are woodies, they embrace it, they love it. I love being able to do all those things. But I don't want to be just known for them.

I think some of the great woodworker were both. Sam Maloof, he uses some great joinery techniques but he is known for his designs. People are drawn to his work because of the beauty of the design. After they are drawn in they see the beauty of the craftsmanship. But if you don't like what you see in the first place, you won't get close enough to it to see the joinery and beautiful craftsmanship.

So I have come to the conclusion that I want to be the best of both. I want to be able to design great pieces of furniture that draw you in to see the magnificent craftsmanship involved in making it. I hope I didn't bore you with this.

Gallery News..

Well I just got off the phone with The Design Centre. They are a local yet nationally known fine furniture gallery here in Launceston. And Rye the retail manager of the gallery told me that he is very interested in displaying my stools on the floor. He has to wait for about a week when he will have the floor space. But he seems keen on the fact that they nothing like it in the gallery. So I have to get them shined up and ready for there debut hopefully next week, if not on the following Monday.

There web address is www.designcentre.com.au

So check them out. I hope they do well. I am ready to make a few sets. Really I'm just ready to make some money. We will see.

As many of you can see, I added a counter on this site. I have always wondered how many people were or are reading my story. So to all of you that check me out, I just want to say thanks. I really enjoy writing this and sharing my thoughts and ideas with those that read. If you have anything that you would like me to write about or questions you might like answered let me know. I think that would make for interesting reading. Leave me a comment or email me at

kalafinefurniture@gmail.com

Thanks

Reporting back

Well I told you all that I was going to be on local radio, and I was. To be honest that's all there really is about that. It is a really small station that is run completely by volunteers. So that should tell about the size of the listening audience. But it was a fun experience. The DJ was really cheesy, but you really can't expect anything less. When I say cheesy I mean the type of guy that is volunteering to do this but takes the job way to seriously. Anyways it was a lot of fun. Who knows maybe it'll be something that I'll have to do more of some day. Man would that be great.

Anyways, as for news for the school front. Not much happening between now and Easter. Our next unit is the chair unit which will be taught by a guy named Evan Dunston. So that will be good. Right now we are trying to do things that will help us for our end if the year exhibition. Yesterday a couple of men needed some timber milled down, so they brought it in and rented the shop and 4 guys at 60 dollars an hour per man. So we made about 800 dollars toward our exhibition. Also Simon received a called from a man in Hobart that is looking to have 2 doors made for a children's wing of the hospital. He thinks that he can find about 5,000 dollars in there budget to do it with. So hopefully that will come about.

Also I am going to be sending in an application to be in a juried exhibition down in Hobart. The application needs to be in by the 20th of April. The exhibition isn't until June I think. But there is a first prize on 7,000 dollars, man would that be nice. Also your piece gets acquired into the permanent collection. I'll let you all know more about that when it gets closer. I am thinking of entering my stools.

Here are a couple of pictures from our school exhibition. I haven't spoken to any of my fellow students yet. So these are pictures of stuff that I know those who made them won't mind them on here. Please to be enjoying...


Lights by Freeman Cumbie-Wall. Very interesting design that I truly think is going to take off. The light is a mode light that puts a very interesting pattern on the ceiling.


Kevin McMullin's coffee table. This is also an interesting design. There were quick a few problems in the making of this table, as one might imagine. He only got this one done. The other one that he was planning to make wouldn't make the bend.

I am currently working on building my own website. This is because we are forced to take some elective classes at the Uni each semster. I choose to take web page design. So I am looking to come up with a creative new business name. I am playing with a few right now: FOURoneFiVE DesIgns is one, ONO Design is another, K2 Designs is another. fouronefive is my son's birthday, ONO is the hawaiian word for good or tasty, and K2 stands for the first letters in my first and last name (Kaleo Kala). If you have any creative suggestions let me know.



Until next time all.

Any Press is Good Press!!

So I told you that we had some local press come to the show. Unfortunately the local news didn't make it. But the local paper did. And even though the article mention nothing about me, they did include a picture of me and my stools.

Also tomorrow I will be interviewed with our Director on a local radio show. I also found out that the Design Centre, which is a local gallery here in Launceston. But they are a prestigious gallery here in Australia. They are interested in displaying my stools. So it has been really good this last week. I'll let you all know how it all goes. Sorry it is a short one this time. Later.

Production '07

So today was the exhibition and it went really well. There is so much work involved
behind the senses to pull something like this off. This last week has been crazy. I finished my stools on Tuesday. Then I spent all day Wednesday painting the stands for every ones stuff. Thursday I spent part of the day finishing the painting, and the other part of the day doing our assessment presentation. Friday morning or this morning was spent setting up the lights and laying out the floor plan and getting everything together. And being 1 of 3 students that were completely done, I gave a hand to get all this done.

So it all went really well. I've decided to call my stools "Nalu" which is the Hawaiian word for wave. I named it that because for the shape of the seat. But also for the fact that the ocean is strong yet full of mystery. I think my stool is the same in that fact. Very strong but full of mystery. People really responded to my stools. Everyone stopped and looked and tried to understand how it works. It was good to get real feedback from people other than other furniture buffs. Just your everyday person telling me what they think about my design and building.

So here are some pictures of my display. I will post pictures of other students work once I ask them if it is ok.


















The television station never showed up. But the local newspaper did, and they only took one picture and that was of me and my stools. So we'll see if I make the paper tomorrow. If so I will scan in the picture and the story later.

The Final Pics before the show

Well I finished the stools today. With one whole day to spare is nice. I only have one coat of oil on the stools. So they still need a few more coats, but that will happen over the next 3 days. So I will get at least 3 coats on before the exhibition.

If you can't tell I decided to go with a whole seat instead of a slated one. There is a good reason for that. First, I really like it this way. But the main reason is that I found that the slats were not that strong. The seat together is pretty strong, not as strong as I would like it to be. So future seats there will be some changes. But the seat right now holds me. So that should be good enough for the exhibition.

They have come out better than I imagined. I really like these stools, I hope they do well.



We had a great time in Hobart over the weekend. They have a great market on Saturday. So we spent the day down by the sea and went to all the little shops and stalls. I got to go to all the major galleries and look at the furniture in them. It always gives me hope seeing what is in these galleries. The quality is not the best. If those guys can get in them, I can get in them.

As for the wood show, it was small. It took about 15 minutes to walk around the show. I spent about 45 minutes looking at things. There wasn't anything really good there to talk about.

Well that's about it. The exhibition is on Friday and after that we have 2 weeks with no instructor. So that means cleaning up the bench area and maybe doing something small and quick. We'll see.

I'll take some pictures of the exhibition and post them, along with some nice pictures of my stool with a better back drop. By the way I am trying to think of a name for my stools, if you have any suggestions please email them to me at

kalafinefurniture@gmail.com

Thanks