Gareth ‘Goldfinch’ Brookes is a self taught designer and maker born and working in Manchester.

Designing and making began for Gareth during Covid, after his business of commercial window cleaning was temporarily forced to shut down.

With a father as an artist, Gareth has always searched for a means to express himself through design, but it wasn’t until he set up a gazebo and a workbench in his back yard in 2020 that he had his Eureka moment and has never looked back.

‘I love that working with wood gives me in some ways a rigid set of rules to follow in order to make a long lasting piece of furniture, whilst at the same time granting me an enormous amount of creative freedom. I find it far more inviting and less daunting than a blank page for a novelist, or a blank canvas for a painter.’

Gareth is very proud to be a self taught maker. Many of the traditional skills he has sweated over are not taught in mainstream education, and with private tuiton proving prohibitively expensive he has instead put in many hard hours and as every maker, continues to learn and improve with every day spent in the workshop.

Uncomfortable in a classroom, Gareth enjoys taking his inspiration from walking the streets of Manchester, admiring the architectural details that even the most simple homes can display. ‘I love that all of these decisions made around the opening of a window frame, pitch of a roof or even the size of a door handle have come about through the collective knowledge from hundreds if not thousands of tradespeople over many years. These decisions have been hard faught and well learnt, and I try to allow these seemingly simple design decisions to influence my own work.

Going forward Gareth looks forward to working in tandem with his clients to make work that is both functional and beautiful. ‘I see my role as one of joy bringer. I believe I have the ability to imbue pleasure into my clients every day lives through the objects they interact most with. Filling ones home with meaningful pieces of furniture is a wonderful gift to yourselves and your loved ones, and will pay you back tenfold’

If you would like to chat with Gareth about a project idea, then please email him here.