I’m Matt.
I am a furniture maker, instructor, and 3rd steward of Rosewood Studio School of Fine Woodworking in Perth, Ontario.
Most of my days are spent working alongside people who are learning to use tools, understand materials or themselves, solve problems, and make something they may not have believed they were capable of making.
How I Ended up Here
My route was not especially straight.
I spent part of my earlier working life in the Canadian Forces. Woodworking came later, initially for many of the same reasons it finds other people: I wanted things I could not afford to buy, and I wondered whether I might be able to make them instead.
What began as a practical question gradually became a larger part of my life. I learned to build furniture, began taking the work seriously, and eventually found my way into teaching.
I still make furniture, although teaching and running the school now take up most of my working life.
Why Hailfellow Exists
Hailfellow began as a name for my furniture work. The word comes from an old expression for a trusted companion, which still feels appropriate.
Over time, this site has become less about displaying what I make and more about keeping a record of what I am learning through making, teaching, and paying attention to the people around me.
Beyond Our Benches is where many of those reflections now live. They may begin in the workshop or classroom, but they do not always stay there. I write about craftsmanship, capability, memory, service, character, and the small moments of everyday life that can reveal more than we understand at the time.
Some of the writing is practical. Some of it is personal. Much of it is simply an attempt to notice what is happening before the moment passes and I forget to write it down.
I am not trying to present a finished philosophy. I am trying to understand what I have witnessed and preserve the things that seem worth remembering.
What Teaching Made Me Notice
Teaching has changed what I pay attention to.
The furniture matters, but so do the things that happen while it is being made. I notice the moment someone stops apologizing for being a beginner. The frustration before an idea finally settles into place. The generosity that develops between strangers working beside one another. The quiet pride of completing something that once seemed beyond reach.
I have become interested in what difficult, meaningful work reveals about people: their patience, capability, standards, character, and willingness to keep going when the result is not yet clear.
Those small moments are often what stay with me.
Purpose. Patience. Precision.
This is how I have decided to answer the question: how do we create something extraordinary? Not in grandiose way, but something that truly is far beyond normal.
I believe purpose gives the effort a reason. Patience gives it the time it requires and that precision is what can follow when the first two are present. To say it another way - I have noticed that people struggle to achieve the precision necessary to create something extraordinary without having patience. More importantly, I and many people I meet struggle to find patience without first understanding the purpose behind our actions.
I still return to this as a compass, although not because I believe I always live up to them. They are simply useful words when the work, or the life surrounding it, becomes noisy.
Away from the Bench
I live in rural Ontario with my family.
We bought a genuine fixer-upper in a hardwood forest. This means that much of my time away from the school is spent fixing something, planning to fix something, or walking past it while thinking about fixing it.
I also read, make music, garden, work on the property, and accumulate more project ideas than any reasonable person could complete.
This site is where those parts of my life occasionally meet the things I have learned at the bench.
If you are new here, Beyond Our Benches is probably the clearest introduction to what I am trying to understand and share.