"Hello! You've Just Won a Prize!"

23 May 2018

Words: Linda Nathan, Wood Review Editor

‘Hello, I’m just ringing to tell you you’ve won a major award and fantastic prize!’ ...now that’s the kind of cold call I’m very happy to make! And that’s how it was phoning the winners of last year's AWR Student Awards in January this year.

I waited until the day before the March 18 issue came out, just so no one else would get that information through to the winners before I did! If you’ve read the March issue you’ll know their names already and you’ll have read the comments made by our fabulous judges Darren Oates and Linda Fredheim. These were great phone calls to make and I took the opportunity to have a short chat with each of our award winners.

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Overall Best: Ben Selig, Year 12, The Kings School, NSW. Teacher: Jayden Taccori

Ben Selig won Overall Best for his Carafe Desk which was inspired by the work of Sydney designer Charles Wilson. He sounded a little tentative when he phoned me back following my voice message. Disbelief might best describe his reaction.

Ben may only have just completed high school but he was actually an old-timer in terms of woodworking having started way back in third grade! Having a father who was once a carpenter might have laid some of the genetic groundwork, and Ben said he did help to keep him on track.

Ben loves working with his hands and during the busy HSC year said it was ‘a way to get my head out of the books and get my hands dirty’. With curves everywhere the desk was a massive challenge and ended up taking around 250 hours to complete. On top of adding massively to the time commitment, there wasn’t one stage that ‘wasn’t going to happen without a hiccup’, said Ben, who this year is studying architecture at UNSW.

Best Design: Jack Taylor, Year 12, The Kings School, NSW. Teacher: Jayden Taccori

When I phoned Jack Taylor to tell him that he had won Best Design for his Xylem and Phloem Table he was also wowed. ‘I entered this not expecting anything’, he said. ‘Pulling some plans or an idea off the internet would have been cool, but I’m the sort of person who wants to be interested in what I’m doing, and challenged at the same time’.

Persistence was required and problem solving was Jack’s main take-away lesson. ‘Everything went wrong at some point. It took a term and a half to develop the design and half a year to make the legs alone. Each leg has double or triple compound angles and is made in two parts. Over 20 prototypes for the ‘cells’ were made, in addition to a ‘cupboard full’ of legs. This year Jack has commenced study for a degree in mechanical engineering.

Best Hand Skills: Arlene Schmidt, Year 12, St Ives High School, NSW. Teacher: Sean Champion

Arlene Schmidt won Best Hand Skills for her semi-hollow electric guitar. A student of woodwork since year 7, Arlene has completed all the usual learning projects, boxes and board games as well as two ukuleles. Wanting to make a Gretsch guitar, hollow and with every surface curved, would be an incredible challenge. ‘I got the specs and details, and then changed some of them to make it my own’, she said. ‘People questioned me about the blue colour but then liked it when they saw it.’

Fitting complex projects into a busy final school year was a challenge for all students. For Arlene the 400 odd hours spent took in lunch breaks, after school hours and weekends, working sometimes till 1am in the morning.

As you would expect Arlene is also a musician. She plays guitar, drums and mandolin in styles that range from pop and rock to a bit of jazz. At the time of speaking Arlene was preparing to study computational design at UNSW.

Best Use of Native Timbers: Jasmine Wellings, Year 12, St Peters Catholic College Tuggerah. Teacher: Michael Wellings

Jasmine Wellings, winner of Best Use of Native Timbers is no stranger to AWR’s student awards having entered last year. Her brother Ethan Wellings entered three years ago and, to complete the family unit, their father Michael Wellings has taught both of them at home and at school. ‘The thing I like most about woodworking is designing, sketching and matching up different species of timber’, said Jasmine, who like Ben Selig is this year commencing a degree in architecture at UNSW.

As for all concerned, making the sketching table and stool was a tour de force for Jasmine in terms of finding time. Lunchtimes, after-school and some very late nights were how she made it happen.

Popular Choice: Jack Wilcox, Year 12, St Marys College, Broome, WA. Teacher: Michael Lake

Popular Choice award was announced via our eNews on Feb 2. Jack Wilcox was another who was excited by the win. Now working as an electrician in Darwin, Jack presented the Butchers Block Table he made to his father for his 50th.

Australian Wood Review congratulates all 2017 entrants and their teachers for their outstanding work!