![]() “You call them engineers over there,” he offers, “like toolmaking – working with heavy machinery.” Geelong being a port town, many businesses were involved with shipping.īern (center, in yellow) with his family, left to right: sister Teresa Brian baby sister Jennifer brother Paul and mother, Anne. He was a very warm, lovely fellow,” Bern remembers, then adds in the kind of detail especially important to a child: “My nana” – her name was Nellie – “made a sponge cake for everyone’s birthday.” Readers of a certain age will recall the airline bags Bern mentions.īern’s mother was a nurse-midwife, his dad a diesel mechanic fitter and turner. He rode on a bus with a little airline bag and his rollie (handrolled) cigarettes. “He knew all the bus drivers in Geelong by their first name. ![]() The family didn’t own a car, so he got around by bus. Bill had one leg that was longer than the other, due to a bout of polio he suffered as a child. Bern has fond memories of Bill, who was “already quite on in years” by the time Bern came along. His paternal grandfather, Bill Chandley, went to work at a factory. The family lost the farm during the Great Depression and had to move into Geelong to look for employment. It is life affirming.īern’s father’s family. I don’t care how old I am each time I feel it, just that I’m feeling it. “I’ve always felt birthdays were a good excuse to draw in close the ones you love and that the warmth of their returned love is a reflection of the happiness I’ve achieved in life. “Aging has never been something that has particularly preoccupied my thoughts,” he wrote in an Instagram post. A slightly larger view of the current commission, with a prototype visible in the background. “I want them all down pat,” he says, because efficient production is important to how he makes his living. “But because it’s a new design,” he reasons, “it’s going to give me a whole lot of other chairs.” The sculptural piece of seating will become a mainstay of his build-to-order portfolio, so he’s putting in the work to make all of the processes readily repeatable. Even though he’s getting paid well for the piece, the pay won’t cover the investment required to puzzle out the making. There are more jigs than usual, as well as more machines, including a PantoRouter. The settee is a commission, the form and joinery – Nakashima meets Wegner, with staked legs (both curved and tapered), steam-bent spindles, a hand-scooped seat and stretchers that swoop up to support the arms – a new paradigm in the Chandley repertoire. Since March, Bern has had just two or three short days a week to work in the shop a curfew has kept him from staying into the night. With schools closed, he has been helping his wife, Alice, home-school their 9-year-old son, Flannery. “I’ve had very limited time in the workshop this year,” he says. ![]() Ordinarily a prolific and highly focused designer-builder of contemporary chairs, Bern, based in Melbourne, has spent much of his time over the past few months laboring over a single piece of furniture: a small settee in blackwood. ![]() This is how I found Australian woodworker Bern Chandley when we spoke at the end of September. ![]() If you’re lucky, you may reach a point where you recognize yourself as weirdly liberated from the everyday grind and be open to new directions. You can moan and groan, lament lost income and opportunities, retreat into a funk. Most of the time you can diagnose the problem, make a quick repair and get back to business with minimal delay.īut when the spanner takes the form of a pandemic, not so much. Throw a spanner in the works, and even the smoothest-running machinery will come to a stop. ![]()
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