Bring Nature Into Your Home
Home Decoration, Home Design, Latest From RENOF
Furniture made out of rain trees with additional slight touch of art blended into it, yay?
Jeffery Yang & Joey Woo finds out why we should include nature into your home.
Bring Nature Into Your Home
Art of Tree is about making furniture out of trees, with a touch of art. It all started about 3 years ago through my other business, that I got acquainted with a couple of sawmills. And there, I saw these rain trees. They were so beautiful, and I didn't even hesitate to start collecting them. It was as if I was collecting art pieces. I got them in slabs and occasionally blocks, haven't even deciding what I was to do with them back then. Before long, my collection expanded and I began thinking about making them into functional furniture. It was then I started getting serious in doing my research and experimenting with them. I drew a lot of inspiration from the west where they are bolder with designs and often they think out of the box. And after almost 3 years of hard work and perseverance, this is where we are today.
Every piece is unique in itself. Even if the shape looks the same, the colour and the grain of the wood will not be identical. So this is ideal for clients who want to assert their taste and establish a style of their own in their décor.
Apart from furniture, we do have a series of natural wood sculptures too. These are all handpicked by me from all over Malaysia and we can certainly find some very interesting pieces. In my collection, I have had natural wood sculptures that resemble a Phoenix, dragon head, birds, swords, fox and many more. These natural wood sculptures, I value them above hand crafted ones, simply because there are naturally shaped with no human intervention. Again, each is unique and you cannot replicate them like hand crafted ones. It is through tens of years of decay that makes them what they are today. These are truly the works of nature.
4. Home concept that Art of Tree's products fit into?
While some of my products are coined as "modern rustic", I see my company steering towards the modern contemporary and modern industrial design. This where there is an integration of different elements such as steel, glass and resin into our wood furniture design. My observations are that the younger generations are more inclined towards modern contemporary and industrial design. I am really excited about this paradigm shift, as it opens up to a lot more ideas and designs. But it also poses a new challenge. Not only we must know wood working, we also must now be familiar with glass works and steel works, or at least work with people who are good at it. So now, not only the wood must be cut right and look artistic, the integration of all the various elements needs to be tastefully done to pass it off as a designer piece.
6. Besides being a furniture provider, have you ventured into other field?
At the moment, we have set our sights only on designing our own furniture. We will try to come up with better designs, to cater to a wide spectrum of budgets, and to suit even small and tight spaces. As we gain momentum, I hope to ship our products beyond the shores of Malaysia one day. As far as interior designing is concerned, we have not directly ventured yet. Having said that, we are constantly working with various interior designers to incorporate our wood into their designs.
We have received some very warm and encouraging feedbacks our clients. Some of them told me that as if they have walked into a designer wood gallery. There are others who reveal that they have not seen anything like this before and they love it because they feel like they moved a small piece of nature back to their homes. Then there are also those who wished they had a bigger house or a second house so they could indulge in more of our pieces. All these feedback really boost our morale and let us know we are relevant and on the right path. But one of the greatest compliment that I received was when clients tell me that they have been looking around, and what we offer in Art of Tree is truly unique, and not any less stylish, when pit against some of the more established designer boutiques around today.
8. Would you recommend your products to be used in wet area?
It’s not recommended to place wood furniture in bathroom or wet area as there is a risk where water might sip into the surface area over a period of time even though coating is applied. However, it’s ok to place the wood slab in powder room or dry kitchen where there is only minimal contact with water.
