In cabinetmaker Nick Pedulla’s spotless Brookvale workshop there are some unusual items that would initially seem to have little to do with the art of fine woodworking.
Alongside the neatly stored draw knives, chisels and planes, there are tripods, lights and professional video cameras.
That’s because Pedulla is one of a new breed of craftspeople who have tapped into a huge market online for instructional videos. That high-tech kit is just as important to the thirty-eight-year-old’s business as his planes or his collection of Japanese saws.
Nick Pedulla: ‘There’s no better feeling and it’s something that is good for the soul.’Credit: Nick Moir
With 330,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel and nearly 1,000 Patreon members paying up to $16.50 each month to view instructional videos, what started as a fun diversion eight years ago has now become the cornerstone of his work.
“People love seeing tools and how everything is set up,” says Pedulla, who now films every build, and has taught himself to produce his own high-quality videos. He estimates 40 per cent of his time is spent creating social media content.
“There are way better furniture makers than me, but they are not dedicating the time to film the work and put it out there. Because I dedicate that time and give people an inside look into a professional shop I think the videos really resonate.
Nick Pedulla’s Vigne bench.
“I believe there is an inherent thing in everybody wanting to use their hands to do something. There’s no better feeling, and it’s something that is good for the soul.”
One of Pedulla’s pieces, his extraordinary Vigne Bench, will be the star of the show at the Australian Design Centre’s The Art of Making, exhibition, which opens on Friday.
Considering whether the bench with its dramatic flowing curves is a piece of art or a piece of furniture, Pedulla concludes it’s “a bit of both”.
“It’s usable and it’s a comfortable seat,” he says. “It follows all the rules of a good bench seat and you can sit on it. I really enjoy that. I think that’s where I want my work to go – I love art but I’m also a furniture maker.”
Growing up on the North Shore, Pedulla was busy designing and building from the earliest age.
“My family would save all their cardboard for me and I’d make things using cardboard boxes, scissors and masking tape.”
Then, when he was eight, his grandfather, a retired woodworker who continued his craft in his garage workshop, took him under his wing.
“I’d always stick my head in and see what he was doing,” says Pedulla. “Then he eventually realised I was interested and he pulled me into the workshop, put a jigsaw in my hand and started teaching me how to do woodworking.”
‘I get to teach people around the world what my grandfather taught me.’
Nick Pedulla
As well as the practical skills, which Pedulla went on to refine with an apprenticeship, his grandfather also passed on some of the philosophy that has sustained Pedulla in his own career.
“He never raised his voice. Everything was able to be spoken about calmly,” he says. “That’s the mentality of the woodworker. If you move too quickly bad things are going to happen because at the end of the day the wood is a living thing. If you don’t respect it, it will do what it wants to do.”
It’s age-old thinking that Pedulla is pleased to be able to pass on via modern technology.
“I get to teach people around the world what my grandfather taught me.”
The Art of Making, Australian Design Centre, 101-115 William Street, Darlinghurst, until May 4
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