Dominic Grasso: "Starting again from nothing was freeing, but also terrifying."
Above: Australian maker Dominic Grasso in the Chippendale school workshop in Scotland.
Student category for Maker of the Year, presented by Carbatec, is open-themed and open to local and international high school and tertiary students enrolled in full- or part-time study in 2024/2025. For some, studying for a career in woodworking can often be a heart choice – one arrived at after other work experience.
Dominic Grasso’s Maker of the Year entry is titled Rinato, which is Italian for ‘reborn’ was inspired by his own journey. He tells us more in the interview below.
Q: You’ve called the piece you entered in Maker of the Year awards “Reborn”. How does an Sydney-sider get reborn in Scotland? What took you away from Australia and where does woodworking come into it?
Wow, what a first question! A bit about me, before moving to Scotland I was a Senior Associate for a global law firm in Sydney practising in complex commercial disputes. I was very lucky, I had the opportunity to work on challenging, high profile cases with some of the best lawyers and advocates in the country.
The reason behind the move to Scotland came about in November 2023, my beautiful wife Carmen is a vet and currently going through the process of attaining specialist accreditation. Similar to human medicine this is a lengthy process, unlike it though there are far less opportunities. It was a residency opportunity in Glasgow that started our journey.
When this opportunity arose for Carmen it prompted me to reflect on my own career. I grew up in the Blue Mountains and I loved being outdoors, I also loved making things with my hands, two things a lawyer (and especially a litigator) does very little of. I have also had a thought in the back of my mind that I would leave the law one day and go make furniture, so I decided to look up furniture schools in Scotland and the greater UK, found the Chippendale International School of Furniture, and as they say the rest is history.
My father is an Italian immigrant, moving to Australia in the 1950s with his parents for a better life. Now almost 75 years later my wife and I moved to Scotland to follow our passions. I didn’t just leave my family and friends behind, I left a career, a network of people, a reputation and a skillset I had spent a decade invested in developing.
Starting again from nothing was quite freeing but also terrifying. I often woke up thinking “what have I done!?!”. Hence, I wanted the first piece I designed and made at Chippendale to be reflective of me and that is how the name Rinato or ‘Reborn’ came about. As I explained in my entry, Rinato is not just a name, it informed the design of this piece.
Detail of Dominic Grasso's Rinato coffee table. Photo: Andrew Cockerill
Q: What does the Chippendale course take in? How long does it go for?
The course at Chippendale is extremely comprehensive. They offer shorter courses from 1 week to 10 weeks but I enrolled for the Professional Course which is 30 weeks split into three 10 week terms.
The first term is all set projects and lectures covering all the fundamentals of woodworking and furniture making techniques from tool sharpening and setup, hand cut joinery, finishing and staining, veneering, turning, furniture design and much much more!
The next two terms are focused on students designing and making their own pieces with lectures and guest tutors in tandem. In this period we learn restoration techniques, steam bending, bent lamination and gilding. The course ends with a graduate exhibition and furniture sale. That happened just this past weekend.
Two variations of Dom Grasso’s 44 Stool, ebonised and with multi-laminate veneer. Photos: Andrew Cockerill
Q: Did you have woodworking skills beforehand?
Before Chippendale I did woodworking in high school. I really enjoyed it but didn’t enjoy sharing my time with one teacher and almost 30 fellow students.
During law school I needed a bench and didn’t like anything I found that was being mass produced. I decided to go to a local tool library and borrow some tools to make a George Nelson bench. It turned out okay considering I hadn’t touched any tools in years but it wasn’t great. After that point I was hooked and I spent any spare moment I had making anything from small boxes to dining tables. Our first home was furnished almost entirely by me with absolutely no formal training.
Q: Is this a new direction in life for you? Will this be your day job from now on?
I hope so! The plan for now is to try and keep making pieces and continuing making my own designs. I hope people like them as much as I do. I have had a really positive response to my work, particularly my Volta dining chair. Carmen and I are staying in Scotland for the foreseeable future but we hope to return to Aus one day and I’d love to set up my own workshop and possibly teach the next generation of furniture makers too!
Dom Grasso worked his way through a series of techniques and projects during his 30-week course at Chippendale.
Q: Can you tell us three ways that being a lawyer resembles being a woodworker?
This is another good one. I think Law and woodworking have a lot of similarities. Attention to detail is a big one, this is a characteristic I have observed in both lawyers and furniture makers.
The next one would be organisation and planning ahead. Juggling multiple tasks on any given day is inevitable. All cases require a strategy that has been considered and planned out that you work towards, the same goes in any process of making furniture. Knowing the order of operations, when to cut a joint or pre finish a component in the process is key.
Lastly, long days. Whether its a handcrafted piece of furniture or a day in the courtroom, they both take huge amounts of human effort and resilience.
Three views of Dom Grasso’s Arco lamp. The shade is made from 3D-printed sugarcane polymer. Photos: Andrew Cockerill
Q: …and three ways they are diametrically opposed!?
Oooh. Well the most obvious is the manual labour involved. Woodworking you are on your feet working with your hands for extended periods of time. Before starting the course I had very soft hands!
The creativity involved, don’t get me wrong, Law does require creativity at times, but when you are designing and making daily the balance of creativity shifts exponentially.
Building on the above, furniture making, unlike law, celebrates individuality and expressing creativity. As a litigator 99% of what I did was analysing facts and applying the law to that, there was little room for expression and individuality.
Q: What your main design influences?
My tutor Ben Dawson has had a profound influence on my design and has been a constant support to me throughout my journey as a designer maker. I love simple elegant designs, my primary influences come from contemporary designers and makers that have come before me. I would be remiss if I did not mention the masterful Isabelle Moore, David Colwell, Yuri Kobayashi and Joseph Walsh to name a few that have had a profound impact on me.
I also love the work of Charles and Ray Eames, Gio Ponti, Carlo Mollino and Danish designers such as Hans Wegner, Finn Juhl, Verne Panton and Arne Jacobsen. There are so many amazing designers and makers from Australia and I’m always keeping an eye on what's going on back home, it’s truly inspiring and motivating to see the world class work coming out of Australia.
The Volta chair in ash by Dom Grasso is now available in four different finishes. See Dom’s Maker of the Year entry here. Photos: Andrew Cockerill
Q: What’s your style as a maker...what do like and what do you aim for in your work?
I try to base my style on contemporary minimalist designs. An early lesson I received was to put everything in a piece that is necessary and nothing more. To that end I find great pleasure in simple shapes, flowing lines and forms where the medium and colour (including the grain and colour of the wood) are the heroes. I also like to find a balance where form is not completely overpowered by the concerns of functionality. This isn’t to say my pieces are not functional, just that they are as functional as they need to be without compromising on appearance and form.
Q: Your most often-made mistake?
Thinking something will be more straightforward or take less time than it actually is.
Q: Your biggest woodworking disaster!!?
Thankfully I haven’t had too many and when I do they are usually fixable, but I guess I’d have to say I’ve had some bad days with the veneer bags.
Post study course, Dominic Grasso’s life as a professional designer maker kicks off Scotland, UK.
Q: Your biggest woodworking achievement?
I would have to say graduating from Chippendale and receiving my first commissions. It has really blown me away seeing people’s response to my furniture and seeing their faces light up when they interact with my work. My ultimate goal is to bring joy to people’s lives and their living spaces and I hope I can continue to do so.
Q: The thing I would most like to change about my own woodworking is…
Until now all of the pieces I’ve made have been for me with my story and background in mind, they are an extension and a reflection of me. I’d love to start making pieces that tell other people’s stories and reflect them.
Q: What do you love most about woodworking?
Everything! I really can’t narrow it down to a single thing, I love it all – the smell of wood, making a wispy thin shaving with a plane, the people, the creativity, the positivity, the collaboration. I can’t wait to get up every morning and do something I love.
Q: My best tip to other makers is…
Don’t sweat the small stuff and don’t get discouraged if you make a mistake, they happen more than we’d like to admit! There’s always a solution and there’s always another chance to go again. My best lessons were learnt from making mistakes, sometimes very stupid ones!
Maker of the Year, presented by Carbatec, is a competition for all makers, amateur, professional and student, and showcases the wonderful things they make from wood. In 2025 we present a series of interviews with some of the makers who have already entered their work.
Maker of the Year, presented by Carbatec is open for entry to makers all over the world. In addition to awards totalling A$19,500 in value, The Jan Pennell Award (A$1,500) will be made to an entry that displays outstanding woodturning. This entry will be selected from the Top 100 shortlisted entries across all Maker of the Year categories including Furniture, Arts & Objects and Student. Local and international makers are eligible to win this award.
In addition, the A$1000 Recycled & Rescued Award will be made to an entry that displays outstanding use of recycled and reused materials. This entry will also be selected from the Top 100 shortlisted entries across all categories. Local and international makers are eligible to win this award.
Photos: Andrew Cockerill
Learn more at https://domgrassofurniture.com and @domgrassofurnituredesign
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