Let us introduce ourselves…

Picture of furniture maker Andrew Joye at his Oxford based workshop.

Hi, I’m Andrew Joye

I studied Fine Furniture for two years prior to my three year degree in Furniture Design & Make at the prestigious Rycotewood Furniture Centre here in Oxford. In 2017 I was awarded the national Medal for Excellence in recognition of the quality of my work and my keen eye for precision and detail.

I love to teach and previously mentored City and Guilds students at Rycotewood. I like to think that I am a patient and considerate teacher with a passion for helping budding furniture makers and woodworkers to flourish and achieve best practise from the get go. The feeling of satisfaction you get from woodwork is incomparable to anything else. It is this sense of reward that drives me to share my knowledge and the wholesome joys of making things in this wonderful, natural material.

Oxford based furniture maker and woodwork tutor Ellis Stacey.

and I’m Ellis Stacey

Following a toe dip into wood carving during the Covid 19 pandemic, my woodworking journey became more serious/gained pace in 2021. Feeling slightly jaded with the days of scrolling screens,  I left my Whitehall desk job and enrolled onto Rycotewood’s City & Guilds Fine Furniture course (I missed Andrew by a couple of years, although he’d be keen for me to stress that I’m the elder..).

Since graduating (top marks, naturally..), I have split my time between teaching evening classes at Rycotewood and Design Technology (DT) to pupils at Christ Church Cathedral School, whilst also running my own practise as a designer-maker of furniture and sculpture (my personal website is here). Winner of several awards, my work has been exhibited locally and nationally and I am a member of the Oxfordshire Craft Guild (OCG) and Society of Designer Craftsmen (SDC).

My approach to teaching is informal and supportive. There is an elemental joy to making and it's important that learners have fun and are encouraged to experiment and express themselves creatively wherever possible. For me, the best part is seeing a student’s confidence and enjoyment grow, from those first slightly nervy tool marks, to the moment they take pause, stand back and smile with a mixture of pride and slight disbelief at what they’ve made over out time together. We founded Froe for those moments.