Wood and marquetry master craftsman Geoff Hannah’s new work - Jubilee House - is a like a dolls house on steroids. 

The roof tiles are jade, the window-sills are jasper, the columns are ebony, the window panes are Brazilian agate and the steps are Tamworth marble.

Jubilee House has taken Geoff nearly four years to complete – over half the time it took him to make one of his best known masterpieces – the Hannah Cabinet - which is on display at Lismore Regional Gallery.

Geoff’s new work was unveiled at the Regional Gallery last Friday as part of Chesta Drawrz and The Lowboys – an exhibition of fine woodwork by Geoff and his students.

As you look at Jubilee House, you’ll see petrified wood, agate and opaline used to bring colour to the piece.

When Geoff opens up each of the house windows, inside are small drawers.

“It’s good to see it finished,” Geoff said.

“I wanted to make it a practical object – it’s a jewellery cabinet.

Jubillee House has been a labour of love for Geoff who said “I’ve got a lot of patience”.

“Once I start something and make a commitment to it, I don’t let go,” he said.

“I’m at it day and night. It’s a big commitment to make something for an exhibition.

“You can plan to get the work done in a certain time, but you also need to allow for unforseen problems – like dropping a marble tile and breaking it."

The steps and risers of Jubilee House have 35 separate pieces of marble he cut and handcrafted.

“If you drop it, it breaks like chalk,” he said. “I curse, then I have to make the piece again.”

He uses expensive materials and said Jubilee House will be hard to sell, but he made it because he wanted to.

His philosophy in life is ‘if you want to do something, do it – don’t wait until you are 90.

“I physically wouldn’t be able to build something like the Hannah Cabinet again,” he said.

“Jubilee House itself took four people to lift it and the marble base took four people to lift it too.

“I just finished the waxing the marble for the base of Jubilee House on the morning of the exhibition.”

Geoff said he keeps a record of the hours he spends making every piece that goes into this work. 

His projects are getting smaller in size and being made in shorter amounts of time. 

The Hannah cabinet took him 6.5 years to build and Geoff said the next one will be on an even smaller scale.

“I don’t want to have such long commitments to get something finished,” he said.

“I don’t intend to retire think and I’ll keep on making things - but I want to get out and about when I need to.”

Geoff Hannah's Jubliee House.

The spark

The idea for Geoff’s Jubilee House started as an idea for a high-end box.

“I live in Jubilee Street, so that’s why it’s called Jubilee House,” he said.

“It took me ten days to draw the plan for the design.” 

Every material in his piece was carefully selected.

“I always think of the colours when I’m building – they all have to work together or it looks too busy and flamboyant.

“My wife Rhonda helps me when I’m looking at colours, but it’s always my decision in the end.”

The house is made from two types of mahogany - Brazilian and Sapele.

“The woods have different grains and colours and work well together,” Geoff said.

“I got slate to make the roof with at first, but the colour wasn’t right – it looked too bushy - so I got jade instead, it’s a high tensile material and the colour was right."

When Geoff started cutting and shaping the pieces of jade for the roof tiles, he used a 21kg block of jade. Out of that, he got less than four kilos of workable jade pieces.

“You need to allow for losing stone when you cut through it.

“I made 1200 tiles, but I ended up with 720 tiles that were useable.”

Geoff said the black obsidian he used is a strong material and is used in surgery, because it’s so sharp.

“I’ve been cut by it a few times while I’m working,” he laughed.

Every piece in the work has been put together so that if one piece breaks, it can be replaced.

Geoff records how much time he spends on every activity involved in making the piece.

“Then I know how much work went into it," he said.

“There’s 700 hours in stone work in Jubilee House.”

History

Geoff grew up near Busbys Flat in Richmond Valley.

“I was born in the bush and my family lived next to a saw mill, where my father was a sleeper cutter,” he said.

“I started working with wood when I was six years old and learned from my father. 

“I’d get the mill offcuts and work with them.

“I used to watch my father cut trees and mill them into sleepers.

“Mum would help him and she’d wear a dress when she was working – that’s what they did in those days.”

Geoff’s family moved to Lismore in 1963 when he was 14 years old and Geoff started an apprenticeship in 1964 as a cabinet maker with Brown and Jolly.

In 1973, he started his own furniture making business in Lismore, which he’s been doing ever since. 

In 1980, he received the Churchill Fellowship to research fine furniture, which involved studying examples at the Louvre, in Paris.

He went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where he was inspired by the fine craftsmanship he saw in woodcraft there.

He remembers the first time he was able to open a bureau and see inside the drawers and how they were constructed.

“If you can see how someone has made something, you can start to get ideas," he said.

The practical objects he makes are considered as art by many people – with much planning and thought put into them.

Geoff’s cabinets

Geoff has made a few cabinets in his life.

The first cabinet he made was the Bicentenary cabinet, which was on display at the Sydney Opera House.

It’s now in his own collection and Geoff said it’s something he’s thinking about selling.

“It’s too hard to divide up between my two children when I pass away,” he said.

He them made the Yaralumla Cabinet, then the Australian Cabinet - which is now in Antwerp, in Belgium.

“When I sold the Australian cabinet, it financed making the Hannah Cabinet,” Geoff said.

The Hannah cabinet is made from 34 types of timber as well as ebony, gold, tortoise shell, abalone, mother-of-pearl, jasper, agate, tiger eye, malachite, lapis lazuli and ruby.

Geoff’s Hannah Cabinet has received national attention with an ongoing campaign to raise enough money to buy the million dollar cabinet and keep it at Lismore Regional Gallery.

(find out more at www.hannahcabinet.com). 

Geoff Hannah, Gaela Hurford and Brian Henry with the world famous Hannah Cabinet.

Commitment

Geoff is man of commitment, discipline and passion.

He was awarded the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2018 for service to the visual arts through the production of furniture and marquetry.

He was also awarded the title of Honorary Fellow of the Southern Cross University in 2009. 

As well as being a gifted master craftsman, Geoff is a renowned teacher of his craft since 1981, having taught aspiring woodworkers from Longreach to Launceston and Muckadilla to Perth. 

He teaches furniture making and polishing at the University of Southern Queensland 

He also continues to conduct classes in Lismore.

Teaching

His current exhibition Chesta Drawz and the LowBoys at Lismore Regional Gallery features works from his local students, some of which have been working with him for 18 years.

“My students tend to stay with me so there’s not many places in my classes for new students – I only take on six students at a time,” Geoff said.

“My youngest student is 15 years old. 

“I love teaching people my craft and seeing my students go home happy.

“They make good quality pieces of furniture and objects that are made in ways that can always be mended if something wears down – like using shellac on the wood which can be re-done at any time.”

Geoff and some of his students.

Current exhibition

Chesta Drawz and the LowBoys - an exhibition of fine woodwork by Geoff Hannah and his students will be on display until December 1 at Lismore Regional Gallery.

There are free daily tours at 11am and also tours of the Hannah cabinet at 11.45am every day. 

The exhibition features more than 60 beautiful works by 26 of Geoff’s students. 

The works include intricate boxes, sideboards, dressers, mirrors, tables and two guitars.

The pieces are made of every imaginable wood including Red Cedar, Walnut, Ebony and Brazilian Mahogany. 

Some works are adorned with beautiful marquetry of king parrot, horses, grass trees, plants and street art or simply the elegant lustre, grain and colour of the various woods. 

Opportunity for local High Schools: Geoff Hannah studio visit

Master craftsman Geoff Hannah & Lismore Regional Gallery are offering 4 high schools from the Northern Rivers Region the amazing opportunity to visit Geoff Hannah's Lismore based workshop and a free tour of Chesta Drawz and the LowBoys.

High School visits to Geoff's workshop will be available on Thursday afternoons during the exhibition period from Thurs 24 Oct 2019 - 28 November 2019.

If you are interested, contact Claudie Frock by email at claudie.frock@lismore.nsw.gov.au