Sheahan Made is the work of Jack Sheahan as he develops his furniture making practice.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Design from RMIT at the end of 2017, I began setting up Sheahan Made and shifted away from graphic design to furniture design.

I am a deeply process-oriented woodworker, and deliberately utilise hand tools for the impact they have on a finished piece, which cannot be duplicated with machine processes. As such, I quickly began designing and making my own tools to suit my particular ways of working, including custom vise mechanisms, the dovetail square, and Japanese style marking gauges.

After studying at Handsome&Co, I received sufficient encouragement and practical knowledge to begin designing my own pieces. In 2019, I moved from Melbourne to Edinburgh to pursue furniture making. After a long search for a suitable workspace I have found a home at Unit 5 of the Albion Business Centre.

Since then I have been designing and building custom furniture and continuing to learn the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of my particular craft. I have particularly focussed on vernacular chair forms for their unique blend of tradition, simplicity, personality, and variety.

I have been lucky enough to have taken part in the Compass: Next Generation Program run by Craft Scotland. In 2020 became a member of The Scottish Furniture Makers Association where I exhibited in the annual show of that year, and in 2022 was awarded the Jorum Craft Award to assist with the development my creative practice and opened a solo exhibition (Ergo) of my work at Sierra Metro. I am a proud to be included in the makers featured at Bard Scotland, where my comb-back chair was included in their first-anniversary exhibition in late 2023. This year will see the exhibition of Ash Rise which will feature a modernised version of a Caithness/Sutherland chair.