Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Waldo.
Hi Austin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My journey into furniture making is long and complex but it all revolves around creating communities. To understand how I got to where I am now, it is important to know where I came from.
I grew up in Kansas and graduated from Kansas State University in 2010. Although my passion had always been woodworking my professional aspirations were leading me into digital marketing. It was difficult for me to find a good marketing job that I felt passionate about so I ended up moving to South Korea as an English teacher. Although it wasn’t woodworking nor marketing, I fell in love with education and the learning process. After four years, I moved back to the states and worked for education tech companies and put my marketing degree to use. All the while, I was making things out of wood every chance I could.
I moved to Austin, Texas around 2014 with my now wife and worked for a number of tech startups. While in Austin, I realized how hard it was to make friends with a similar passion for woodworking. The hobby can be isolating and is typically done by oneself. I decided to take woodworking classes at the Austin Community College to meet fellow woodworkers. This ended up to be a great decision.
Through those ACC classes, I made lots of woodworking friends and eventually met Philip Morley, a prominent custom furniture maker. My classmates and I chatted about how common it is for tech companies to have networking events and happy hours but you would never see anything like that for woodworker. So in 2016, I started the Woodworking Social Club. This club meets twice monthly, typically at a brewery, and members show off projects and chat about woodworking.
I decided that it would be fun for the Woodworking Social Club to have at least one yearly event that would bring in woodworking companies and other clubs from around the area. This was when the Texas Woodworking Festival was born. This annual event has continued to grow each year and brings in thousands of woodworking to Austin from all of the US.
Through the Woodworking Social Club and the Texas Woodworking Festival, Austin’s woodworking community had begun to grow and so too did the demand for woodworking education. In 2018, I started the Austin School of Furniture a great team of advisors and furniture makers ready to teach.
The Austin School of Furniture has grown faster than I could have expected. We are now offering beginner to advanced class during the daytime, evenings and weekends and bring in students and teachers from all over North America.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Surviving COVID as a small business has obviously been our biggest challenge to date. Outside of that, my biggest struggle has been fighting the rising cost of real estate in Austin. Operating out of a large climate-controlled warehouse in south Austin is quite expensive. We have had to become scrappy and expand our revenue streams to include all kinds of woodworking related education. We now offer private classes, live online classes, downloadable pre-recorded video courses and even recently started a woodworking retail store.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
The Austin School of Furniture is a woodworking and furniture making school located in south Austin offering beginner to advanced, part-time and full-time woodworking courses. We focus on educating hobbyists and aspiring professionals in the craft of furniture making through demonstrations, lectures, pre-recorded videos and of course in-person hands on learning.
We at ASF feel that it is extremely important to learn and understand the traditions and historical techniques of furniture construction while embracing advances in design and technology. Hand tools to computer-aided machinery are all used to cover a broad understanding of both the past and future of furniture making.
We are especially proud of a multi-year project coming to fruition this summer. In May of 2022, the Austin School of Furniture will be offering its first full-time 3 Month Furniture Making Intensive program. This course is designed to give aspiring professional the knowledge and confidence to start designing and building their own furniture.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
I have learned how important and impactful a supportive community can be. We would not have survived this long without the help of our local and online community.
Contact Info:
- Email: contact@austinschooloffurniture.com
- Website: www.austinschooloffurniture.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinschooloffurniture/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinschooloffurniture
