• Mieke and Patrick Senior-Loncin
    Mieke and Patrick Senior-Loncin
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Indeco in the making: Two decades of Design is an exhibition that opened on March 14 at the Design Centre in Launceston as part of the Tasmanian International Arts Festival. The exhibition displays over fifty products and prototypes spanning 23 years of design and production by Patrick and Mieke Senior-Loncin under their Indeco brand.

Having owned and therefore held and used some of their products I can vouch for the pleasure of having handmade items whose simplicity belies a refinement of design.

The exhibition was curated by Rye Dunsmuir and Lisa Ancher and runs until April 19, 2015. Design Tasmania is located Corner Brisbane & Tamar Streets, Launceston. Opening times and more information is here

Below is the text of a story that appeared in Australian Wood Review, June, 2002. The final paragraph stills hold true.

Good Things in Small Packages

Patrick and Mieke Senior-Loncin have shown that products with quiet good looks can speak volumes for themselves. Story by Linda Nathan.

Small, well wrapped packages hint at good things inside…and when they contain items of smooth and fragrant woodware they are a delight to receive. Indeco’s kitchen, home and office wares aren’t the sort of glossy, wooden souvenir-type gifts you sometimes see around. The finish is subtle and matt, you can feel, see and smell the wood. They are superbly designed and crafted, and have the understated good looks of objects which don’t show the sweat and hours spent producing them. And they are seasoned performers too, good sellers since Patrick and Mieke Senior-Loncin founded the company.

Indeco is based in Swan Point, a quiet place situated on the banks of the Tamar River on Tasmania’s north coast. Patrick is a local, born in Mole Creek, while his wife and business partner Mieke  was born in Belgium. According to Mieke, the business started ‘accidentally’, 10 years or so ago. Patrick, after five years working as a cabinetmaker for the then-operating furniture factory of James Bradley, decided to market the small items he liked to make at home on his lathe, ‘I wasn’t going anywhere, I had nothing to lose’, says Patrick of the company’s inception. Indeco is still a two-person company with Patrick designing and making all the product, while Mieke does the ‘everything else’ activities of marketing, sales, paperwork and customer liaison.

Each of the catalogue items has a simplicity of lines, facets curves and tapers which make them a pleasure to see and hold. Edges are square cut, bevelled or blended into another facet. These wood wares are sanded silky to the touch and on many there is an absence of polish which allows the bare wood to be seen and felt unmasked. ‘In the early days the galleries wanted us to oil things’, explains Mieke, ‘but they soon become grotty and the spurtles and spatulas can be washed anyway.’ And, she adds, Patrick was stubborn in the beginning, preferring the honesty of finely machined and sanded surfaces.

The time spent developing each line has varied. Some, like the salad servers, evolved from existing designs (in this case the spatulas). Some, like the ladles, took a couple of weeks to get right. Patrick and Mieke have gone to a lot of trouble to source efficient and high quality mechanisms for their pepper, salt, nutmeg and coffee mills. The design for the coffee grinder took two years to finalise. A suitable grinding cone was eventually sourced in Italy,  and a local manufacturer who could precisely make the stainless steel components was found.
There are spurtles (their first product), ladles and spatulas for kitchen use; trivets, spoons, servers, chopsticks, egg cups, salt cellars and platters to take to the table; bookends and card stands to grace the office—plus a few personal items such as earrings, coathangers and backscratchers which don’t fit the other categories. It’s an eclectic collection of desirable objects to be enjoyed on an everyday basis. And they are marketed with an idiosyncratic touch…the product note for Ned’s Plats says: ‘To butter the toast on, slice the onion, crush the garlic, place the cheese on or whack the blowfly with.’

The company name is a contraction of the words Innovative Design Company and each product is discreetly stamped with the Indeco trademark. Public recognition of design innovation has come no less than four times as Indeco products have been chosen for inclusion in the Tasmanian Wood Design Collection. First the ladles, then the split sphere bookends, then the salad servers and most recently, the cubist pepper mill and salt dish with spoon. All up, there are now around 35 products which are marketed around Australia and via the internet.

‘We use mainly Tasmanian species because’, says Patrick, ‘that’s what the tourist market demands’, but he has no objections to using other native species if requested—some people even send their own wood! The species offered in their catalogue are blackwood, myrtle, Huon pine, sassafras, banksia, cheesewood, goldey wood, native olive and jarrah, nearly all Tasmanian species—ebony is the only international guest on the list.

Patrick’s basic design philosophy is about ‘simple, non-fussy elegance’. He feels the wood itself shouldn’t speak too loudly and his meticulous approach to quality is apparent if you see their products close-up. Aside from personally executing and controlling every aspect of the production process, Patrick feels the key to quality control lies in selecting wood for each item with the utmost care. This is aided by having trusted local timber suppliers such as Paul Noordanus and Cockatoo Timbers who know what Patrick’s needs are.

Most small businesses are time-consuming to run. But in return, for the on-average 10 hours spent every day of the week, there is a kind of freedom because, Patrick admits, he would find it hard to work for someone else. He can take things as they come, speed or slacken the pace and organise production schedules to avoid boredom. He might spend a day turning 60 spurtles, then turn 80-90 wine stoppers the day after. Batches of the more complicated items are completed in no more than 1-2 days.

There are two work areas, one 6 x 4 metres and one slightly larger at 7 x 5 metres. The smaller area houses a Tough lathe, 16” bandsaw, radial arm saw, docking saw, small wide belt disc sander, drill presses along with hand and power tools. It’s a compact set-up which is situated only 10 metres from the house, so it’s not too hard to fall out of bed and get to work on time each day.

Indeco is a small family-owned and operated business which, from small beginnings, has quietly gone about the business of good design and manufacture. In the beginning Mieke toured the state and found sellers for their stock without much trouble, but then buyers on the mainland followed on with orders largely as a result of word of mouth. Visit Tasmania and you will now see a profusion of small handcrafted wooden objects, however when they started out their products were unusual in style and finish. Were they pioneers? ‘In a way, without shouting about it, I suppose we were,’ says Patrick.

Patrick and Mieke Senior-Loncin have shown that products with quiet good looks can speak volumes on their own account and attract a steady market of people who value that special something which hand made items can have.

You can contact Indeco on (03) 6394 4052, email info@indeco.net.au or visit www.indeco.net.au

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