Blue Swallow Designs is a small business I started in March of 2017 building little wooden garden ornaments, giftware, furniture, trinket boxes and other assorted household goods. Everything is made by hand; I have quite a few machines now that get used for most of the time consuming jobs (the donkey work) but good ol’ hand tools feature pretty heavily in most stages of production (especially in the finer, detailed work).
My preference is to use recycled, reclaimed or scrap timber; it’s a lot harder and more time consuming to work with but I love all the imperfections. Twisted grain, knots, cracks, rusty nail holes, sap wood – all sorts of stuff that you won’t find in construction grade timber – which is fine, as construction grade is very boring.
In addition to recycled wood I also use some of Tasmania’s specialty timbers but I prefer to source scraps, mill ends and off-cuts where possible. Most of the things I build don’t need long lengths so shorter bits tend to be easier for me to handle and off-cuts, in particular, can have some really nice features.
The designs are all my own work; I get inspiration from lots of different places but everything gets drawn up, prototyped and tested by me. It is important that things look nice but, for me, it is equally important that they are functional.
I’ve also started restoring old furniture. This came about after finishing a complete makeover of our shack at Orford on the East Coast of Tasmania. We wanted to keep the beachside ‘shack’ vibe so looked for really cheap furniture that I could ‘upcycle’; in the process I discovered there was a lot of very nice timber furniture out there that just needed some TLC. Upholstery is beyond my capabilities but anything made from wood is very restorable, regardless of condition.
In addition to my woodwork I’ve also returned to film photography. I’ve been creating photos for over forty years now (showing my age) but, rather foolishly, sold off all my darkroom equipment and film camera gear to make way for digital. Several years ago I realised I’d made a big mistake and set about building a new darkroom with new equipment and a whole lot more cameras and lenses.
Now that I’m retired (well, sort of – still doing contract IT teaching) I plan to use my crazy bipolar brain and all this wonderful gear to produce true archival photographic prints; everything from portraits to landscapes to still life. All going well my work should start appearing in late 2024.
Should you have any questions or would like to inquire further about the products made by Blue Swallow Designs please feel free to contact me.
For some more background information check out my First Blog Post.
Steve Brookes
Blue Swallow Designs 