New Wave Rocker

Tony Kenway builds rocking chairs and other furniture in Byron Bay, a beach town with big surf midway down Australia’s east coast. Kenway is an avid surfer and diver himself and credits the sea with influencing the soft polish of his chairs. Their fluid curves and lack of hard edges evoke a surf-tossed stone. Boats, too, were essential to the evolution of Kenway’s rockers. After apprenticing as a cabinetmaker, he spent several years building boats. “Coming out of cabinet­making,” he says, “I was stuck in the linear. Learning to loft and build boats released me into three dimensions.” A book on Sam Maloof gave him the impetus to bring a more sculptural tone to his work. Using regional hardwoods like this chair’s quilted Tasmanian blackwood (a close cousin to koa), Kenway saws all the parts out of solid wood except the rockers, which are bent laminations.

From Fine Woodworking #186

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