Joe Kennedy’s passion for furniture making really does run in the family.
From the age of five, he spent hours watching and helping his grandfather craft pieces by hand at the family home in Falmouth, Cornwall – and by 14 he had made a large number of toys and completed his first piece of furniture.
Now the Plymouth University graduate has had his work recognised nationally, after one of his pieces was named the best exhibit in show at the 2014 Young Furniture Makers Exhibition in London.
Joe, who has just completed the MA Design: Maker and Materials programme, was entered for the exhibition by one of his lecturers and said the win had come as a huge personal surprise.
The 22-year-old, who still lives near Falmouth, said:
“Friends and family have consistently told me they liked my work, and I have always enjoyed using my hands to make things. Besides my grandfather’s furniture making, his brothers were both masons, so there is a history of traditional skills in the family and it is great to be able to continue that. I am a perfectionist and am always finding fault with my own work – I never see a piece as finished, and keep looking for ways to improve it. But I hope this might give me confidence and recognition to spur me on in my future career.”
