Staff Enhancement Grant elevates member's furniture-making skills

In December 2019, the Staff Enhancement Grant Committee approved nine applications. Gill Lesperance was one of them. Here is his story.

I've always built things with my hands, I enjoy watching piles of stuff becoming a thing that creates a solution. in 2012 I was lucky enough to buy a house with a 600-square-foot shop space in the backyard, I spent the first year rebuilding that shop, then officially opened G&G Carpentry.

I was building custom furniture whenever I had the chance. Each project grew in complexity and scale until I found myself using thousands of dollars of exotic hardwoods and advanced techniques. One day I realized that I wanted more for my customers, and despite owning a large assortment of tooling, the largest asset I was missing was training in high-end fine furniture building.

A few months ago I was sitting on the couch reading an issue of "Canadian Woodworking" and I came across an article about an artist and his studio. It was a rapid-fire question-answer-style article; very short. But every answer this artist gave, made me think that this guy would be a great mentor.
As it turns out, this artist is located in Kitchener, so I decided to reach out and see if he would be willing to give me some private lessons to help me elevate my work.

It turn out to be a great decision and a wonderful experience. Ryan designed these tables to incorporate as many challenging elements as he could fit into a project and then offered to have them build from a combination of hard maple and bird's eye maple.

We built these tables together, side by side, the process was an eye opening, mind expanding and enjoyable experience. 
A huge thank you to Ryan Davidson from 
https://www.davidsonandthomas.ca
https://www.instagram.com/davidsonandthomas/

If you have a minute and want to see some gorgeous work, check him out.

Photos here are of our Bistro Table project. 

Gill Lesperance