New wood school in Melbourne offers short courses

Veneered tray and straw marquetry by Louen Pinpin-Menez and Laura Inguaggiato. Photo: Sid Marin

There’s a new woodworking school in Melbourne town but you’ll find some old friends there. Kym and Rob Fabris are longtime woodworking educators and organisers and have now started their own school offering weekly and short courses.

Soil and Sea boxes, photo by Laura Inguaggiato

Coming up soon are classes by French born and trained furniture designer makers Louen Pinpin-Menez and Laura Inguaggiato. Louen and Laura are no strangers to Wood Review readers – in 2022 Louen and Laura took were winners of the Bowls & Boxes category with their innovative Soil and Sea boxes (shown above). These built on their explorations in veneering and incorporating coloured paper layers in their work. A follow-up article in Australian Wood Review details some of their experiments and findings.

Louen is offering a course on introductory veneering where participants learn to make a veneered tray over two days. There’s a maximum of five participants only.

Laura’s course will take in a straw marquetry project and draw on her training with renowned French exponent Lison DeCaunes and experience working in in the Melbourne studio of straw marquetry master Arthur Seigneur.

Many more courses are on offer including those led by teachers such as Andrew Gibbs, Ben Hodgetts, Carl Lutz, Bruce Moonie, Richard Lloyd, Remy Tramoy, Leslie Jones and Chris Maruca.

Learn more at melbournewoodworkingcourses.com.au