This unique creative streak and eye for detail combined with a love of nature and organic materials and products, not to mention years of dedication and hard work, is starting to pay off for Craig.
Very recently, Craig turned his trade and more than 25 years’ experience in the boat-building industry to furniture design and building at his workshop.
The new range of furniture from CMC Design was launched in September 2010 when Craig travelled to Auckland for the Auckland Home Show. His designs of smart, elegant and sophisticated side tables and chairs, which cleverly incorporate sweeping lines and angles with straight 90-degree angles where necessary, delighted the city audience, many of whom made comments on the “stunning workmanship”.
“People asked us if it was an Italian or European design,” Craig explains. “They were surprised to hear the furniture was made and designed in New Zealand, and by myself nonetheless. Some people didn’t even want to sit on the chairs because they said they could see they weren’t cheap. Sure it’s handmade and designed locally, but it lasts a lifetime as they are functional art pieces.”
The Seedling’s children range, which consists of timber furniture and building blocks, was also launched at the show and it too received generous feedback with interest from kindergartens around the country. Craig says the children’s range is a simplistic style with no plastic attachments or gimmicks, and the range comes with a lifetime warranty.
With no family history in the trade, Craig took it on himself to learn from some of the best at SJ Ashby’s Boat Yard at Port Opua, Bay of Islands, where he has his workshop. It was at this training ground that Craig learnt the basic skills, and how to refit, repair and maintain wooden boats.
In that time the focus was on wood – Craig’s first love – so when the industry started to sway away from these traditional values, his passion for furniture making returned.
“During my time as a boat builder it had been about building wooden boats and the restoration of old wooden classics, but these days it’s less and less about that.
I suppose in a way that’s what helped me into the furniture design and craft. I have this real love for wood and organic materials and how you can manipulate their forms. I really just wanted to get back into that.”
From start to finish the process of furniture design and creation takes months, but this is part of the attraction and uniqueness of Craig’s work. Generally it starts as it did when he was a teenager, with a scribble of an idea or design on paper. After leaving the idea to marinate for days or weeks, he then draws up a full-scale sketch of the design.
“Generally this changes things a bit,” says Craig. “Things don’t always measure up when you do a full-scale sketch of what you had originally put down on paper. Then every time I wander past it, I’ll add something or change something to make it better”.
After an unset length of time, and when Craig is satisfied, he will start to build the design.
Again this is not a rushed part of the process and is perhaps when the real skill in the artist steps forward.
Priced at $4300 for a lounger, the CMC Design adult furniture range has a niche market, for now. For this reason Craig is still “paying the bills” with his boat building side of the business.
But together with an ingrained passion that sometimes keeps him and his fellow team members — including Chinka the dog — at the workshop past normal working hours, hope remains that the comfortable and stylish furniture pieces will take off.
“It’s early days and there’s more money going out in a business sense than is coming in,” says Craig. “While we haven’t moved thousands of pieces yet, we are still inspired to keep going.
“For me it’s about the real thing. I’ve always been a fan of buying Kiwi made when I can and my stuff is no different. It’s handmade and real. I’m a big believer you don’t have to leave New Zealand to buy quality furniture. Hopefully we are helping this belief along.”
