writer and photographer PEN TAYLER
The overcoat hangs on a wooden coat hanger above a pair of workmen’s boots. Side lighting from the nearby window highlights the folds in the garment and showcases the double row of stitching around the collar, and the buttonholes and buttons down the front. I have to restrain myself from reaching out and running my hand down the fabric, because it’s not fabric, it’s Huon pine, as are the workmen’s boots below the coat.
When Michael Reeve was a child growing up in Wynyard, he never imagined working with wood. His passion was drawing. “As a child I would draw almost anything: animals, birds, people’s faces I found in magazines – anything really. National Geographic was a good reference. I was just happy sitting for hours at a time, getting lost in my thoughts of what I was drawing.”
Fortunately his parents knew a worker at the APPM factory in Burnie who supplied left-over pieces of heavyweight paper from the ends of the ream. His father trimmed the pieces to length, then folded and stitched them with string to make drawing pads for Michael.
His early 2023 installation The Journeyman, at An Artistic Affair, Rebecca Kissling’s gallery in Oatlands, features the workman’s coat and work boots, plus a cap, gloves, kitbag, umbrella and walking stick, all beautifully carved from Huon pine and other speciality Tasmania timbers. Everything is real-life looking. I want to put on the gloves and cap, pick up the kitbag and open the umbrella.
Then Reeve points out that the bag is a solid piece of timber, and much heavier than I imagine.
In 1973, Reeve’s passion for drawing led him to apply for a position at the The Advocate, where he became a trainee commercial artist. “It was there that I honed my craft of drawing and design.”
Reeve came to the newspaper towards the end of the letterpress printing days, just before the introduction of computers. “Everything was done by hand. For example, a local retail clothing outlet would send us clothing garments, which we would hang on the back of the studio door on a coat hanger. My job was to create a black and white watercolour sketch to illustrate the garment on a human torso, which then became part of an advertisement.”
Since those early days, he has worked in many areas of drawing and design, including illustration, fashion, cartooning, portraiture, sign writing, magazine layout and advertising artwork. He has dabbled in most art media, including watercolour, oils and pastels, but always returned to “what I feel most comfortable with – the contrast of black and white”.
There is a good reason for that. He is colour blind.
Michael Reeve’s workshop is ideally located on the edge of a narrow valley, looking out over timbered hills. It’s a perfect spot for someone who says, “I just love with a passion everything about the beauty that mother nature gives us.”
Inside his delightful, light-filled workshop, with its aromatic scent of Huon pine and other timbers, are some exquisite carvings of various Australian animals including a thylacine. There are his tools of trade and pieces of timber which lie stacked on shelves waiting to be turned into a piece of art. He’s always looking out for interesting bits of timber. “I’ve even taken pieces of wood off the odd person who was about to burn it. I could see something in it,” he says with a smile.
Working with wood, however, happened by accident. When he inherited a wood lathe 28 years ago, he wasn’t sure what to do with it or even how to use it. A friend gave him a short demonstration, but after using it for a while he realised he was never going to be a professional wood turner. “But I thought if I could draw onto it, then I should be able to carve something on the wood turned items I was producing. Once I realised my carvings were OK, I got hooked on expressing my desire to illustrate Tasmanian fauna and flora three dimensionally.”
He learned wood carving through trial and error, always starting with a sketch. “When I’m sketching up a new piece of work, I’m exploring the options and difficulties that might occur on the journey through the piece. It’s much like drawing, except that where I would put the shading in, I’m removing timber instead.” Although he notes “You only get one opportunity with wood. If you remove too much timber, you pretty well have to start again.”
For more information about Michael Reeve and his work, visit www.michaelreevewoodartist.com.au.
Pen Tayler is a Tasmanian writer and photographer. She photographed 12 towns for Towns of Tasmania, written by Bert Spinks, and has written and provided images for Hop Kilns of Tasmania (both Forty South Publishing). She has also written a book about Prospect House and Belmont House in the Coal River Valley.
