About Eclipse
Founded by Ross and Juli Triffitt, Eclipse Handcrafted Furniture have
been manufacturing quality, solid timber furniture for well in excess of
30 years. For most of that time Eclipse have specialised in the use of
unique indigenous hardwood timbers to handcraft unique pieces of
furniture. The timbers used to create these pieces are mostly salvaged
timber from dead trees on private properties or recycled timber from old
buildings. These hardwood timbers reflect the harsh Australian
environment that the tree has been exposed to, in some cases easily
for over two to three hundred years.
'We don't destroy Mother Nature's beautiful
creation; we give it the gift of immortality'.
The timber in each Eclipse dining table has its own signature and story
to tell. We love the fact that many of the timbers used to make a
dining table would otherwise have been wasted in some way. The
timber is salvaged from old dead trees or from old buildings and turned
it into a treasured piece of furniture that will be around for literally
generations. These beautiful and unique timbers are part of our natural
heritage and they deserve to be preserved.
EXPERIENCE:
Ross and Juili have nearly forty years experience in the
furniture industry. Ross started off in a small retail shop in Wagga in
the late seventies selling lounge furniture made from basically large
cushions filled with crumbed foam and covered in colourful velvets and
corduroy materials. These 'lounges' and 'chairs' were then teamed with
chrome coffee tables and arched lamps, a very obvious carry over from the
sixties. As Ross explains, ' I used to love accessorising with
interesting and novel items and one that comes to mind is 'frozen
moments' that I'm sure some people around my age might remember'.
After a couple of years this little operation evolved into something a
little more conventional in modern fabric and leather lounges amongst
other things, made by a company in Sydney. This was around the time Juli
came onto the scene and then a few later they started manufacturing
timber furniture in their garage at home employing a young guy who had
experience building furniture up in Qld. This is a very abbreviated
version of a very long and interesting story about how the 'Eclipse' we
now know started off quite a long time ago.
Now days the team at Eclipse aim to provide customers with an individual
and tailored service. Eclipse employs nine craftsmen at different
levels of skill and experience in their Wagga Wagga based factory. Each
craftsman is dedicated and passionate in the work they do and they strive
to uphold the Eclipse ethos.
Exposing Nature's Secrets.
Ross's affinity with the beauty inherent in Australian Eucalypt
Timbers started when he was growing up on a farm chopping up firewood. He
observed the different colours, textures and densities within different
types of eucalypts. Then his passion for Eucalypt timbers grew rapidly
when his business started using some recycled hardwood to make furniture
when they started to graduate from using softer timbers which back in the
late eighties was mainly recycled Baltic and Hoop pine as well as old
Oregon..
One of Ross's other earlier influences came from his late Grandmother's
hobby of lapidary (the art of polishing stones)
.
'It was fascinating seeing a very ordinary looking stone go through
the polishing process and being absolutely gob smacked when it came out.
It was amazing to see the beautiful colours and patterns in what was once
just an ordinary stone and this is very similar to what we do at Eclipse
but with timber.
'The exterior of most of the naturally felled tree's we use is
often seen as being drab and uninteresting but once the timber is dressed
and polished up, an amazing arrays of colour and beautiful patterns
appear'. Each piece of timber is unique just like the stones
that his grandmother used to polish up. "We aim to expose this
beauty, turning a once discarded dead tree into a practical functional
and high value item that can be used and admired for generations."
Eclipse Handcrafted Furniture's creations reveal the immense
variations that are inherent in Australian hardwoods, many having lots of
beautiful 'natural features' such as gum veins, sap pockets and many
other very interesting things that makes the piece being created
intrinsically individual.
Dining tables especially, become a fantastic showcase for these
beautiful timbers and all their individual and unique characteristics.
Finishing most dining tables the natural way with an oil obviously
compliments the natural look in the wood. In creating tables this
way Ross recognises a connection with the ancient Japanese concept
of Wabi Sabi - the art of
finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature.
Eclipse designs are mostly underplayed and modest allowing the person
browsing in the showroom to discover the undeclared beauty within each
piece.
Eclipse's main showroom is in the Alexandria area in Sydney. Nikki, Aldo and
Ross and Julies's son Marc run the Sydney showroom with Ross and Julie
mostly running the factory in Wagga but are frequently in the showroom on
weekends.