Fine furniture on the coast
From the Autumn/Winter 2009 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.
Students, including Soloman Kiflemariam (pictured with his work) are turning out beautiful and ingeneous furniture designs. Photos by Howard Spencer
Coffs Harbour TAFE furniture design course coordinator Martin Tomasoni reckons he has two good reasons why his course is so popular and enduring: the teachers and the location.
“The staff that we employ are design-focused first and are all excellent furniture designers and makers with a wide variety of experience and qualifications,” Martin said.
“I also believe being in such a beautiful location helps us be creative without the pressure of city living.”
Martin holds an exhibition every year of the work his students produce, and the quality of the work speaks for itself as visitors marvel at the ingenuity of many of the designs.
“Some Diploma of Arts furniture graduates become designers and makers of custom contemporary furniture, others use TAFE as a stepping stone into other design-related areas of study at university such as product design, industrial design, interior design or architecture and some go on to be design technology teachers at high school,” Martin said.
“Students’ ages range from 16 to 65 and we have an annual intake of seventeen.
“We started the course in 1999 although furniture design courses have been running in Australia since the 1970s.
“The course mission statement is to teach and train students the art of designing and making original pieces of contemporary furniture for today’s modern life style.
“We have a strong policy of only using Australian native timber species in hard or softwood.
“We also focus on using locally available timbers, such as flooded gum, blackbutt, blue gum, turpentine, forest oak, river oak, red cedar, silky oak and hoop pine.
“This year we have moved from a two-year course to three years offering Certificate 4 and an advanced diploma.”
For more information go to www.nci.tafensw.edu.au.
Howard Spencer - Public Affairs & Media
