Wooden creations with a personal touch
Pierce and Adele Devlin are regular faces at Taranaki Diocesan School’s Under the Mountain Arts and Crafts Fete, having had a stall there every year the fete has run.
Actually, Pierce and Adele are familiar faces at Taranaki Diocesan School fullstop, with both working there now, while their daughter Alyx attended Dio some years ago, serving as head girl in 2015.
Both members of the school’s parent-teacher association (PTA), the couple were instrumental in the Under the Mountain event starting up in the first place.
Pierce says he and Adele were already regulars at other markets through their home business Touchwood, which sells a range of handmade wooden serving boards, platters and other useful homewares.
“We had been to the markets and saw the benefit in them, both for vendors, but also for the place having the market. So we got the PTA on board, and the Under the Mountain market here began.”
It’s grown over the years, Pierce says, which he puts down to the event having built a reputation for quality, hand-made items from NZ.
“It’s a niche, people want it. They don’t want to go somewhere and just see a load of things you can buy in any shop. It’s about the stories behind each item. The fact you know who made it.”
That sense of connection is strong in Pierce and Adele’s own items for sale. Specialising in wooden serving platters, bowls, boards and the like, the wood is sourced locally, meaning each piece has a story or a connection to a place behind it.
“We buy from locals – we have some wood currently we bought from Julie and Andrew Larcom, which was on their farm.”
Touchwood began about 10 years ago, says Pierce, and has grown a loyal and regular following.
“We get repeat customers, which is always a good feeling. We have had orders from restaurants too, over the years.”
Pierce has a “pretty decent range of machines” at home, he says, which is where he turns pieces of native and reclaimed timber into household items that are both useful and beautiful to look at.
“A lot of the designs we sell, they have been developed over the years. Adele will come up with an idea, then I will have a play with it. We will tweak it until it’s right. Adele gets the rejects for our own house.”
Pierce and Adele are constantly looking for things they can add to their range, or ways they can add further elements into their designs.
A friend, says Pierce, is now doing some laser cutting for them, etching designs on to the board.
“We have six different designs they are doing for us: a pīwakawaka, a tuī, a silver fern, a koru, a straight koru and a new Māori design as well.”
Boards and platters with those designs on have been some of the most popular sellers recently, he says.
Adele cuts the templates for the various items, says Pierce, “then I do the next part”.
Before they are ready for the markets, the items are finished with beeswax and a final once-over is given to each item for quality control.
“We take care in making sure everything we sell is something we can be proud of. We really take pride in what we do, and in the finished product we hand to someone.”
Touchwood is also on Facebook: www.facebook. com/touchwoodtaranaki