Rustic Decor: Seeing the trees for the wood

A leafy setting off a winding farm road in KwaZulu-Natal Midlands' rustic Dargle valley is an odd place to find an award-winning collection of contemporary sculptural woodwork - massive hand-turned bowls, stark and striking benches, and enticingly tactile tables.

This is where the craft of Andrew Early begins. Where it ends could be New York, Germany, Scandinavia or on the pages of décor magazines.

Early's work has won the Elle Decor International Design award and the Conde Nast House Style award, sold to the likes of Donna Karan and Terence Conran, and been commissioned by the KwaZulu-Natal premier's office and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. There is talk about supplying a high-end outlet in Shanghai.

For Early, a third-generation woodturner, it starts at the beginning, with the trees. He uses salvaged wood, mostly exotic, often jacaranda.

"I'm contacted by tree-fellers. I only need two or three trees a year, the bigger the better."

The 100-year-old trees, he said, had the best grain .

But it is a slow, precise craft. A single bowl turned from wet wood takes around five years to dry. It's a challenge given the size of the bowls he has chosen to create.

"If you dry a bowl too quickly it will crack. If you try to dry it in a microwave it explodes."

• Early opens his new studio today. Contact info@andrew-early.com